The Holy Innocents

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew (2, 13-18)

When the Magi had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

This is the Word of the Lord.
 listen here

Revolution of Tenderness

In an interview to a Catholic weekly magazine (‘Credere’),  Pope Francis responds to a question about the female face of the Church, saying it is not easy to understand the maternity of God, so he prefers to speak of the tenderness of God as our mother and father. If we are open to this revolution of tenderness, the Pope says, we ourselves will become more tolerant, more patient and more tender, learning not to treat people as objects. The Pope gives the example of an employer who lays off his workers over the summer so that he doesn’t have to pay the extra pension or social security costs of a full time worker. If we are able to put ourselves in that other person’s shoes, the Pope says, then things change and we stop thinking about the money in our own pockets.

Read report  here

Read interviedw in Italian here