Message of Pope Francis...

Our differences make the Church beautiful: Pope Francis during General Audience

October 9, 2013. (Romereports.com) The rain and clouds showed up, along with thousands of pilgrims, to Wednesday's General Audience with Pope Francis. But it didn't keep him from making his way around the crowd, under the rain, but always with a smile.  

POPE FRANCIS
“It's clear that with such an ugly day, you are very courageous to be here. Congratulations!”

In his prepared remarks, Pope Francis spoke about what the word Catholic means, and what makes the Church Catholic. He began by saying that the Church is the home of the true faith and salvation, the place where people meet Jesus through the Sacraments.

His second point was that the Church is Catholic because it's universal: it welcomes everyone, and reaches all corners of the globe.

POPE FRANCIS
“The Church is not just the shadow of our bell tower. It embraces a vastness of people and populations that profess the same faith. They're nurtured through the same Eucharist, they're served by the same Pastors. Feel the communion with the other Churches, with all the Catholic communities, small or large, in the world.”

The Pope also said the Church is Catholic because it brings together diverse cultures into harmony and unity. He said uniformity kills the gifts God gave to each person, and that the world's diversity makes the Church stronger.

POPE FRANCIS
“We are not all the same, and we should not all be the same. We are all diverse, different. Each one has their own qualities, and this is the beautiful thing about the Church. Each one contributes what God gave them to enrich all others.”

As he greeted the pilgrims in their respective languages, Pope Francis made a special mention of the one year mark since Benedict XVI decided to include Arabic in the general audience. He made the decision after his apostolic visit to Lebanon, to show the Church's nearness to Christians in the region.

POPE FRANCIS
“I ask you to pray for peace in the Middle East: in Syria, in Iraq, in Egypt, in Lebanon, in the Holy Land, the birthplace of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.”

The Pope closed off the audience by greeting bishops from Ethiopia and Eritrea, where many of the immigrants killed at sea near Lampedusa came from. The group participated in a mass earlier in the morning to pray for the victims.

October 9, 2013. (Romereports.com) The rain and clouds showed up, along with thousands of pilgrims, to Wednesday's General Audience with Pope Francis. But it didn't keep him from making his way around the crowd, under the rain, but always with a smile.  

POPE FRANCIS
“It's clear that with such an ugly day, you are very courageous to be here. Congratulations!”

In his prepared remarks, Pope Francis spoke about what the word Catholic means, and what makes the Church Catholic. He began by saying that the Church is the home of the true faith and salvation, the place where people meet Jesus through the Sacraments.

His second point was that the Church is Catholic because it's universal: it welcomes everyone, and reaches all corners of the globe.

POPE FRANCIS
“The Church is not just the shadow of our bell tower. It embraces a vastness of people and populations that profess the same faith. They're nurtured through the same Eucharist, they're served by the same Pastors. Feel the communion with the other Churches, with all the Catholic communities, small or large, in the world.”

The Pope also said the Church is Catholic because it brings together diverse cultures into harmony and unity. He said uniformity kills the gifts God gave to each person, and that the world's diversity makes the Church stronger.

POPE FRANCIS
“We are not all the same, and we should not all be the same. We are all diverse, different. Each one has their own qualities, and this is the beautiful thing about the Church. Each one contributes what God gave them to enrich all others.”

As he greeted the pilgrims in their respective languages, Pope Francis made a special mention of the one year mark since Benedict XVI decided to include Arabic in the general audience. He made the decision after his apostolic visit to Lebanon, to show the Church's nearness to Christians in the region.

POPE FRANCIS
“I ask you to pray for peace in the Middle East: in Syria, in Iraq, in Egypt, in Lebanon, in the Holy Land, the birthplace of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.”

The Pope closed off the audience by greeting bishops from Ethiopia and Eritrea, where many of the immigrants killed at sea near Lampedusa came from. The group participated in a mass earlier in the morning to pray for the victims.

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Good News

Muslim leader says Pope Francis ‘resonates with the Muslim world’

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Pope Francis greets visitors during his weekly general audience at the Vatican. (AP)

The president of the Islamic Affairs Council of Maryland offered high praise for Pope Francis, saying the Catholic leader “resonates with the Muslim world,” much like the saint from whom he takes his name.
"From my perspective, Pope Francis is really doing a wonderful job in terms of outreach, in terms of contributing to world peace, in terms of contributing to stopping wars and conflicts, praying for better understanding," said Imam Mohamad Bashar Arafat in an interview with Catholic News Service.
Arafat made the comments after visiting the Vatican in early October as part of a trip arranged by the U.S. State Department. Arafat pointed to a number of examples, including the pope’s recent call for the world to pray and fast in September in advance of what were then-expected U.S. military strikes against Syria.
"St. Francis resonates with the Muslim world," Arafat said, noting that in 1219, Francis of Assisi was the first Catholic leader credited with holding a dialogue with a Muslim leader.
"I see Pope Francis saying the right things and setting the right tone, and also appearing in the right places at the right time," Arafat said.

Pope Francis has repeatedly reached out to the world's Muslims in his public comments. As recently as an August address, Francis said Catholics must learn to live in "mutual respect" with their "Muslim brothers."
Arafat also serves as president of the Civilizations Exchange and Cooperation Foundation (CECF). He has spent years working on interfaith initiatives and currently provides training and instruction for the State Department’s Youth Exchange & Study (YES) program.
“The YES program provides scholarships for high school students (ages 15-17) from countries with significant Muslim populations to spend up to one academic year in the United States,” reads an explanation on the State Department’s website. “Students live with host families, attend high school, engage in activities to learn about American society and values, acquire leadership skills, and educate Americans about their countries and cultures.”

Take care ourself

Different Parts of Our Body Age At Different Times

We all accept that getting older is inevitable. A leading clinicians have revealed the exact age when different body parts start to decline, most alarming being the brain and lungs.

French doctors have found that the quality of men's sperm starts to deteriorate by 35, so that by the time a man is 45 a third of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Here, with the help of leading clinicians, Angela Epstein tells the Daily Mail the ages when different parts of the body start to lose their battle with time.

BRAIN - Starts aging at 20
As we get older, the number of nerve cells - or neurons - in the brain decrease. We start with around 100 billion, but in our 20s this number starts to decline. By 40, we could be losing up to 10,000 per day, affecting memory, co-ordination and brain function.

LUNGS - Start aging at 20
Lung capacity slowly starts to decrease from the age of 20. By the age of 40, some people are already experiencing breathlessness. This is partly because the muscles and the rib cage which control breathing stiffen up.

SKIN - Starts aging mid-20s
The skin starts to age naturally in your mid-20s.

HAIR - Starts aging at 30
Male hair loss usually begins in the 30s. Hair is made in tiny pouches just under the skin's surface, known as follices. A hair normally grows from each follicle for about three years, is then shed, and a new hair grows. Most people will have some grey hair by the age of 35. When we are young, our hair is coloured by the pigments produced by cells in the hair follicle known as melanocytes.

MUSCLES - Start aging at 30
Muscle is constantly being built up and broken down, a process which is well balanced in young adults. However, by the time we're 30, breakdown is greater than buildup, explains Professor Robert Moots. Once adults reach 40, they start to lose between 0.5 and 2 per cent of their muscle each year. Regular exercise can help prevent this.

BONES - Start aging at 35
'Throughout our life, old bone is broken down by cells called osteoclasts and replaced by bone-building cells called osteoblasts - a process called bone turnover,' explains Robert Moots, professor of rheumatology at Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool . Children's bone growth is rapid - the skeleton takes just two years to renew itself completely. In adults, this can take ten years. Until our mid-20s, bone density is still increasing. But at 35 bone loss begins as part of the natural aging process.

BREASTS - Start aging at 35
BY their mid-30s, woman's breasts start losing tissue and fat, reducing size and fullness. Sagging starts properly at 40 and the aureole (the area surrounding the nipple) can shrink considerably.

FERTILITY - Starts aging at 35
Female fertility begins to decline after 35, as the number and quality of eggs in the ovaries start to fall. The lining of the womb may become thinner, making it less likely for a fertilized egg to take, and also creating an environment hostile to sperm.

EYES - Start aging at 40
Glasses are the norm for many over-40s as failing eyesight kicks in - usually long-sightedness, affecting our ability to see objects up close.

HEART - Starts aging at 40
The heart pumps blood less effectively around the body as we get older. This is because blood vessels become less elastic, while arteries can harden or become blocked because of fatty deposits forming on the coronary arteries - caused by eating too much saturated fat. The blood supply to the heart is then reduced, resulting in painful angina. Men over 45 and women over 55 are at greater risk of a heart attack.

TEETH - Start aging at 40
As we age, we produce less saliva, which washes away bacteria, so teeth and gums are more vulnerable to decay. Receding gums - when tissue is lost from gums around the teeth - is common in adults over 40.

HEARING - Starts aging mid-50s
More than half of people over 60 lose hearing because of their age, according to the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.

KIDNEYS - Starts aging at 50
With kidneys, the number of filtering units (nephrons) that remove waste from the bloodstream starts to reduce in middle age.

PROSTATE - Starts aging at 50
The prostate often becomes enlarged with age, leading to problems such as increased need to urinate, says Professor Roger Kirby, director of the Prostate Centre in London . This is known as benign prostatic hyperplasia and affects half of men over 50, but rarely those under 40. It occurs when the prostate absorbs large amounts of the male sex hormone testosterone, which increases the growth of cells in the prostate. A normal prostate is the size of a walnut, but the condition can increase this to the size of a tangerine.

GUT - Starts aging at 55. 
A healthy gut has a good balance between harmful and 'friendly' bacteria. But levels of friendly bacteria in the gut drop significantly after 55, particularly in the large intestine, says Tom MacDonald, professor of immunology at Barts And The London medical school. As a result, we suffer from poor digestion and an increased risk of gut disease. Constipation is more likely as we age, as the flow of digestive juices from the stomach, liver, pancreas and small intestine slows down.

TASTE AND SMELL - Start aging at 60
We start out in life with about 10,000 taste buds scattered on the tongue. This number can halve later in life. After we turn 60, taste and smell gradually decline, partly as a result of the normal ageing process.

BLADDER - Starts aging at 65
Loss of bladder control is more likely when you hit 65. Women are more vulnerable to bladder problems as, after the menopause, declining estrogen levels make tissues in the urethra - the tube through which urine passes - thinner and weaker, reducing bladder support. Bladder capacity in an older adult generally is about half that of a younger person - about two cups in a 30-year-old and one cup in a 70-year-old. ...

VOICE - Starts aging at 65
Our voices become quieter and hoarser with age. The soft tissues in the voice box (larynx) weaken, affecting the pitch, loudness and quality of the voice. A woman's voice may become huskier and lower in pitch, whereas a man's might become thinner and higher.


LIVER - Starts aging at 70
This is the only organ in the body which seems to defy the aging process.

My true life

Something I need you to understand. Your joy does not come from knowledge about Him. Your peace does not come from understanding or revelation. Your love for Him does not come from a desire birthed in your own tries at righteousness. He HIMSELF is your joy. And that joy is your strength. He HIMSELF is your peace. And that peace surpasses all understanding. When He is your peace, nothing can shake you. Nothing can alter you. Nothing can move you or distract you.
He HIMSELF is the love inside of you. You are only able to love God by being filled with God. Please hear me. You can’t do this on your own. If you are feeling empty, if you are feeling led astray, if you are feeling weak or sad or discouraged or disillusioned, LOOK at Him. Look at Him. He has all you need. And you must stop trying to be “good enough” for Him.
He says you are beautiful. He already delights in you. Stop trying so hard to get what you are already freely given.