POPE FRANCIS' OPENING MESSAGE FOR LENT 2014..............

Opening his first full Lenten Season as Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis reminded the repentant and the entire World on Ash Wednesday yesterday, of the importance of remaining humble and selfless servants of God - citing portrayals of himself in recent months.  Pope Francis who has been featured by some as a superhero and a rockstar, for the truly positive response and connectedness with an incredibly large band of humankind; Catholics, Christians, other Religious Believers, Atheists, and the Alienated and Detached, - clearly stated in comments he made in an interview with an Italian newspaper expressed his displeasure with the mythmaking surrounding him, finding it, "offensive".  Pope Francis said,
he is not, "a sort of Superman", but that the Pope is, "a man who laughs, cries, sleeps calmly, has friends like everyone else, in short - is a normal person".  In his Ash Wednesday Homily at Mass in Saint Sabina Basilica on Aventine Hill in Rome, Pope Francis proclaimed the need for Catholic-Christians to embrace the traditional actions of Lent : Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving, in order to, "wake up...and help us see the need that God can give us the strength to change our lives and surroundings".  Stating, "Lent comes providentially to reawaken from our lethargy", Pope Francis urged us to avoid the worldly seduction of defining success by possessions instead of the interiority of our hearts.  "What matters is not appearances and the value of life does not depend on the approval of others or of success, but on what we have inside".   Replenishing what is inside of us in Faith, Hope, and Love, signified and actualized by our Lenten practices of self denial will cleanse and change our hearts..............Father Troy David