Pope Urges Faithful to ‘Open Doors’ to Their Hearts

In contrast to this life of “sofa-happy” paralysis, Pope Francis said, “Jesus is the Lord of risk, of the eternal “more”.

Catholic priests and nuns should strive to overcome any “resistance and weariness” and be “living writers of the Gospel”, he said. Also present in the church were Tomaszek’s two sisters and father and Strzalkowski’s two brothers.

In his homily of the Mass, attended by hundreds of faithful, Pope Francis said: “For us who are disciples, it is important to put our humanity in contact with the flesh of the Lord, to bring to him, with complete trust and utter sincerity, our whole being”.

“It is the story of our own calling, the voice of the love that attracted us and transformed our life, leading us to leave everything at his word and to follow him”, he said.

He warned of “drowsy and boring kids who confuse happiness with a sofa”, saying that following Jesus called for “a good dose of courage, a readiness to trade in the sofa for a pair of walking shoes and to set out on new and uncharted paths”.

Francis, 79, said being constantly glued to screens – where the awful events of the world become just another story on the evening news – numbed youngsters to the suffering of others.

At Auschwitz, Francis prayed silently for more than 15 minutes before speaking individually to the survivors, shaking their hands and kissing them on the cheeks.

Relics of late Pope John Paul II lie in the Sanctuary of St. John Paul II in Krakow, Poland, Saturday, July 30, 2016.

Anna Maria Jacobini, a well-known journalist from the Italian RAI who came to Krakow to report live from World Youth Day, died on Friday evening.

Deputy Health Minister Marek Tombarkiewicz advised pilgrims to wear hats or have umbrellas for protection from the sun and to drink water.

“Today Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life, is calling you to leave your mark on history”, the Pope told the hundreds of thousands of young people attending Saturday’s vigil at the “Campus Misericordiae” – or “Field of Mercy”.

He has led Masses, visited Auschwitz Thursday, and met with Polish politicians, clergy, sick children and many faithful.

He will hold another mass there on Sunday, an event seen as the climax of his trip. Visibly emotional and wide-eyed, the youths boarded the vehicle and joined Pope Francis, waving at the crowd.

Mora added: “He is really peaceful, and he is very humble”.

After taking his place on the stage, young people from Poland, Syria and Paraguay gave their experiences of finding hope in the midst of disbelief, war and addiction.

“Finding their happiness in the Lord, they are not content with a life of mediocrity, but burn with the desire to bear witness and reach out to others”, he said.

Going into the church, the pope paused to see a young girl, whose artificial legs were paid for by Francis, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said.

At the end of the Mass on Saturday, Krakow Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who for decades was John Paul’s closest aide, told Francis the church remains open.

For much of this week in Krakow at the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day, Pope Francis has been concerned about the concept of violence in the modern world.

A year after John Paul II was elected pope in 1978, he returned to his homeland, urging millions of his beleaguered Poles behind the Iron Curtain – in nuanced and coded words – to oppose communism.

“This call is also addressed to us”.