Blessed Pope Paul VI Faith in Jesus satisfies deeper hungers
Doing God’s will means believing in Jesus and allowing love for him to translate into love for one’s neighbours, Pope Francis has said.
The Gospel story of the multiplication of loaves demonstrates the concern Jesus showed for people’s daily physical needs, the Pope said, but the passages that follow show how “it is even more important to cultivate our relationship with him, reinforcing our Faith in him who is the ‘bread of life’ come to satisfy our hunger for truth, our hunger for justice, our hunger for love”.
Before reciting the Angelus prayer with visitors in St Peter’s Square last Sunday, Pope Francis offered a commentary on the day’s Gospel reading, John 6:24-35, which tells of the crowds fed by Jesus following him and asking him what it means to do “the works of God”.
Jesus answers: “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”
Pope Francis said that Jesus “wants to satisfy not only their bodies but also their souls, giving them the spiritual food that can satisfy their deeper hungers”.
Pope prays Blessed Paul VI inter cedes for peace
On the 40th anniversary of the death of Blessed Paul VI, Pope Francis went into the grotto under St Peter’s Basilica to pray at his predecessor’s simple tomb.
The Pope who oversaw the last sessions of the Second Vatican Council and began implementing its teachings died on August 6, 1978, at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence outside of Rome.
He was buried six days later in the basilica’s grotto. Unlike most of the Popes buried there, his tomb is in the earth – rather than elevated – and is covered with a simple travertine marble slab.
Pope Francis reminded visitors to St Peter’s Square of the anniversary and of the fact he plans to canonise his predecessor on October 14.
“From Heaven may he intercede for the Church he loved so much and for peace in the world,” Pope Francis said.
He asked the people in the square to join him in a round of applause for “this great Pope of modernity”.