“This way, it does not remain a dead letter, in the drawer of the heart, because the Holy Spirit makes the seed of that Word germinate in us. And the Word of God works, it is alive and effective.”
“In this way, each one of us can become a living ‘translation,’ different and original. Not a repetition, but a living ‘translation,’ different and original, of the one Word of love that God gives us.”
“We see this in the lives of the saints, for example: no one is the same as the other, they are all different, but all with the same Word of God.”
The pope concluded his reflection by encouraging pilgrims to imitate the scribe.
He said: “Let us repeat Jesus’ words, making them resound in us: ‘To love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength and my neighbor as myself.’”
“And let us ask ourselves: does this commandment truly orient my life? Does this commandment resonate in my daily life?”
“It would be good this evening, before going to sleep, to make an examination of conscience on this Word, to see if we have loved the Lord today and if we have done a little good to those we happened to meet.”
After praying the Angelus, Pope Francis expressed solidarity with the victims of recent flooding in Vietnam, which has forced thousands of people in the Southeast Asian country to flee their homes.
He also referred to the Italian island of Sicily, which has suffered a week of deadly storms.
He highlighted the continued suffering in Haiti, an impoverished Caribbean country with a population of 11 million people engulfed by economic, social, and political crises.
“I ask the leaders of nations to help this country, not to leave it on its own. And all of you, when you return home, look for news about Haiti and pray, pray a lot,” he said.
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The pope recalled that he had watched the testimony of the Camillian missionary Fr. Massimo Miraglio on the Italian television program “A Sua immagine” (“In His Image”).
He said: “The things that he was saying… of all the suffering, all the pain that there is in that land, and how much abandonment. Let’s not abandon them!”
The pope also acknowledged the beatification of four martyrs of the Spanish Civil War in Tortosa, Catalonia, on Oct. 30.
He asked pilgrims to applaud Francesco Cástor Sojo López and his three companions, slain during a wave of anticlerical violence in 1936-1938.
The pope noted the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) opened in Glasgow, Scotland, on Sunday.
The Vatican indicated earlier this month that Pope Francis would not travel to the summit. The Vatican’s delegation will be led by Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
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