February 24, 2023 / 9:15 a.m.
This Friday, February 24, Pope Francis assured that “everything we own is a gift from God and we must let ourselves be enlightened by Him in the management of the goods we receive”.
Pope Francis received this morning in audience the members of the Association “For Peter the See”, founded from the decoration of military merit awarded by the Holy See in the Second Italian War of Independence.
During his address to the members of this association, who are on a pilgrimage in Rome, the Holy Father pointed out that “even today you are witnesses of the generosity and charity that animated the hearts of your predecessors, who were not afraid to spend their lives for love of the Church”.
“Today, the call to give yourselves out of love to our brothers and sisters is no less urgent: so many of them suffer from war, violence, exclusion, material and spiritual poverty,” he said.
Next, Pope Francis referred to Lent as “a propitious time that calls us to convert from the slavery of selfishness to the freedom to love and serve God and our brothers”.
“Everything we own is a gift from God and we must allow ourselves to be enlightened by Him in the management of the goods we receive”, the Pope affirmed.
For the Pontiff, “the Spirit, source of generosity, will always encourage us to give to those in need, to fight poverty with what He gives us.”
“Because the Lord – explained the Pope – gives us in abundance so that in turn we can give ourselves”.
Finally, the Holy Father encouraged those present to “do good to all, taking the time to love the smallest and most defenseless, the abandoned and despised, the discriminated against and marginalized.”