ROME — Pope Francis offered an upbeat message Wednesday, urging Christians to live one day at a time sustained by prayer and the grace of God.
We meet God not in the past or the future but in the present moment, the pope insisted during his weekly General Audience in the Vatican. “Today I meet God, today is always the day of the encounter.”
“There is no wonderful day other than the day we are living,” Francis said, adding that those who are always thinking about the future and how much better things will be “live in a fantasy, they do not know how to deal with concrete reality. And today is real, today is concrete.”
Prayer “is to be done today,” the pontiff continued. “Jesus comes to meet us today, the day we are living” and he comes to make things better.
It is prayer that “transforms this day into grace, or better, it transforms us,” he said. “It appeases anger, sustains love, multiplies joy, instills the strength to forgive.
“Sometimes it will seem that it is no longer we who are living, but that grace lives and works in us through prayer,” he said, reiterating the need to “take today as it comes.”
Conversation with God revolutionizes life and makes us better people, the pope insisted.
“When an angry thought comes to you, or an unhappy one that moves you toward bitterness, stop yourself,” he advised. “And say to the Lord: ‘Where are you? And where am I going?’ And the Lord is there, the Lord will give you the right word, the advice to go ahead without that bitter, negative taste.”
“Each day that begins is accompanied by courage if it is welcomed in prayer,” the pope said. “Thus, the problems we face no longer seem to be obstacles to our happiness, but appeals from God, opportunities to meet Him.”
“And when a person is accompanied by the Lord, he or she feels more courageous, freer, and even happier,” he declared.
The pope went on to urge Christians to pray for everyone, even their adversaries.
“Let us pray always, then, for everyone, even for our enemies. Jesus counseled us to do this: ‘Pray for your enemies,’” he said.
“Prayer inclines us toward a superabundant love,” he continued. “Let us pray above all for people who are sad, for those who weep in solitude and despair that there still might be someone who loves them.”
“Pray works miracles and the poor then understand, by God’s grace that, even in their precarious situation, the prayer of a Christian makes Christ’s compassion present,” he said.
“Prayer helps us love others, despite their mistakes and sins,” he continued. “The person is always more important than their actions, and Jesus did not judge the world, but He saved it.”
“What a horrible life is that of the person who always judges others, who is always condemning, judging,” he added. “This is a horrible, unhappy life, when Jesus came to save us.”
Open your heart and learn to forgive, he counseled. “We need to love each and every person, remembering in prayer that we are all sinners and at the same time loved individually by God.”
“Loving the world in this way, loving it with tenderness, we will discover that each day and everything bears within it a fragment of God’s mystery,” he said.
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