Evil doesn’t have the last word | National Catholic Register

The initiative, which has expanded to most countries in Latin America, seeks to help those seeking “reconciliation and forgiveness” and experiencing God’s mercy.

Pope Francis received on Wednesday participants in Project Hope, a program to provide spiritual and emotional healing to women and men suffering from the consequences of choosing abortion.

The initiative, which has expanded to most countries in Latin America, seeks to help those seeking “reconciliation and forgiveness” and experiencing God’s mercy.

Since 1999, these “comrades,” whom the Holy Father called “angels,” have been caring for “other abortion victims,” those who choose to end the lives of their children.

Project Hope was born out of women and men who asked for help “with tears in their eyes and a need to know how to cope with unbearable pain.”

The project’s goal is to help parents cope with their grief “with the help of trained professionals and through an approach of acceptance, understanding and confidentiality that is designed to facilitate the meeting of mothers and fathers with their child who has been the victim of an abortion.”

The suffering is “indescribable”

During an Oct. 30 audience at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, Pope Francis expressed his joy at receiving those who for 25 years have accompanied women whose suffering, in the pontiff’s words, is “indescribable.”

For the Holy Father, “the birth of every newborn is often synonymous with joy, which mysteriously overwhelms us and renews hope.”

“We seem to realize, without knowing how to explain it, that each child proclaims the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, the desire of God to dwell in our hearts,” he added.

Looking at Scripture, Pope Francis said the Lord “wanted us to share the pain which, because it is the opposite of this joy, shakes us cruelly.”

“In Rama you can hear a cry, a sob and a bitter cry: Rachel cries for her children and does not want to be consoled for her children – they are no more!” – read the Holy Father.

The first cry, Pope Francis said, quoting an ancient author, “was for children, holy innocents, and their pain ceased with death, while the bitter cry was the cry of mothers, which is always renewed when they remember.”

He also mentioned the flight of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph into Egypt because of Herod’s order to kill newborns, to explain “that such great evil drives Jesus away from us, prevents Him from entering our house, from having a place in our house.” hotel.”

“Evil does not have the last word”

“But we must not lose hope,” the Pope reminded. “Evil does not have the last word; it is never final. Like the angel in St. Joseph’s dream, God announces to us that after this wilderness the Lord will return to take possession of His house.”

The pontiff also noted that the people participating in Project Hope are like “these angels.”

“I sincerely thank you for this,” he said.

He also urged them to trust in “the steady hand of St. Joseph, that these sisters of ours may find Jesus in their despair.”

“With him they will reach the warm and safe home of Nazareth, where they will experience inner silence and the peaceful joy of being welcomed and forgiven into the bosom of the Holy Family,” he concluded.

This story was first published ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It was translated and adapted by CNA.