VATICAN CITY — God always offers people the help and courage they need to face life’s fears and difficulties, Pope Francis said Jan. 26 during his weekly general audience.
The pope said his thoughts were with all those who “are crushed by the weight of life and can no longer hope or pray.”
Parents, in particular, often must grapple with situations or problems that are out of their control, such as when their child is sick or has a chronic illness. “How much pain is there!” the pope said.
Parents also may be aware their children have “different sexual orientations,” so they must figure out “how to deal with this and accompany their children and not hide in an attitude of condemnation,” he said.
Parents may see their children die of an illness or in a car accident, or they see them struggle in school, he said. There is so much pain or fear, he said, but “never condemn a child.”
Continuing his series of audience talks about St. Joseph, Pope Francis focused on how the saint would discern the voice of God through prayer and dreams.
It is important to be able to recognize the voice of God amid so many other voices, such as “the voices of our fears, the voices of past experiences, the voices of hopes,” the pope said, adding “there is also the voice of the evil one who wants to deceive and confuse us.”
“Joseph demonstrates that he knows how to cultivate the necessary silence and, above all, how to make the right decisions before the word that the Lord addresses to him inwardly,” he said.
God “does not cast us alone into the fire. He does not cast us among the beasts. No,” the pope said. “When the Lord shows us a problem, or reveals a problem, he always gives us the intuition, the help, his presence, to get out of it, to resolve it.”
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