Pope Francis, “Fratelli tutti” — here is the second prayer from the encyclical:
| An Ecumenical Christian Prayer O God, Trinity of love, from the profound communion of your divine life, pour out upon us a torrent of fraternal love. Grant us the love reflected in the actions of Jesus, in his family of Nazareth, and in the early Christian community. Grant that we Christians may live the Gospel, discovering Christ in each human being, recognizing him crucified in the sufferings of the abandoned and forgotten of our world, and risen in each brother or sister who makes a new start. Come, Holy Spirit, show us your beauty, reflected in all the peoples of the earth, so that we may discover anew that all are important and all are necessary, different faces of the one humanity that God so loves. Amen. |
In the first 8 paragraphs of “Fratelli tutti”, Pope Francis gives an introduction to the topic of fraternity and social friendship. He refers to St. Francis’ journey to the Middle East with the love of God as his only weapon as inspiration in paragraphs 3 and 4. Then in n.6 he writes: “the following pages do not claim to offer a complete teaching of fraternal love, but rather to consider its universal scope, its openness to every man and woman. I offer this social Encyclical as a modest contribution to continued reflection, in the hope that in the face of present-day attempts to eliminate or ignore others, we may prove capable of responding with a new vision of fraternity and social friendship that will not remain at the level of words. Although I have written it from the Christian convictions that inspire and sustain me, I have sought to make this reflection an invitation to dialogue among all people of good will.” Then in n.7 he says “As I was writing this letter, the Covid-19 pandemic unexpectedly erupted, exposing our false securities. Aside from the different ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident. For all our hyper-connectivity, we witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all. Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learnt was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality.”