Through the Year with Pope Francis: A review.

ear read­er: With all the so-called shock­ing quo­ta­tions from the pope, which have been mak­ing a mad cir­cu­la­tion through the blogs of glee­ful lib­er­als and pan­icked con­ser­v­a­tives, would it not be nice to have access to a col­lec­tion of the Holy Father’s words that the front pages and head­line news have ignored?

Just this week­end, I received in the mail a won­der­ful lit­tle vol­ume that does just that. Pub­lished by Our Sun­day Vis­i­tor, Through the Year With Pope Fran­cis is a dai­ly devo­tion­al of 365 quo­ta­tions, main­ly from his hom­i­lies and Gen­er­al Audi­ences. If you like devo­tion­als, this is the one for you. Or, if you just want to counter sil­ly claims about the pope’s rad­i­cal views, this is a resource you will want to have.

If you like to have med­i­ta­tions to take with you to Eucharis­tic Ado­ra­tion, why not pick up a copy of this book? What bet­ter way to spend time before the Blessed Sacra­ment than to med­i­tate upon the Holy Father’s words and pray for his inten­tions? (There’s a ple­nary indul­gence for that, under the nor­mal con­di­tions.)

Here is a typ­i­cal med­i­ta­tion, for Jan­u­ary 20:

Let­ting Christ make us his own always means strain­ing for­ward to what lies ahead, to the goal of Christ (cf. Philip­pi­ans 3:14), and it also means ask­ing one­self with truth and sin­cer­i­ty: What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What must I do for Christ?”

Each day’s med­i­ta­tion always ends with a sub­ject for reflec­tion, pro­vid­ed by the book’s edi­tor. Today’s is, “In the silence of your heart, think about the ques­tions Pope Fran­cis has asked.

They are good and wise ques­tions; and they have the virtue of get­ting one away from all the non­sense about the pope that we read on the blogs. They recall our mind and heart to Christ, who is at the cen­ter of our faith.

What­ev­er the con­tro­ver­sy that has arisen about his papa­cy, at the cen­ter of the pope’s mes­sage is the desire to recall us to Christ, and the joy of Christ, and the demands of Christ.

This valu­able book is a great way to do that. It will chal­lenge you. Get it now before we are too far into the new year. Your prayer life will great­ly improve because of it; and you will grow clos­er to the Lord and rich­er in the Catholic faith.