Pray first and ask what God wants of you. Then write down some goals. Don’t get too specific because as you pray your way through the year, God may help you define or refine your goals.
![Effie Caldarola](https://thetablet.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Effie-Caldarola-75x75.jpg)
Pray first and ask what God wants of you. Then write down some goals. Don’t get too specific because as you pray your way through the year, God may help you define or refine your goals.
Pope Francis has a “burning desire” during this special Jubilee Year. He wants us to reflect on and practice the corporal and spiritual works of mercy so that we may “enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy.”
A pope needs friends, needs mercy and needs to reach out to all people, Pope Francis said in two radio interviews. He told Portugal’s Catholic Radio that he goes to confession “every 15 days, 20 days.”
To be a true Christian means being forgiving, kind, humble, gentle, generous, merciful and very patient, Pope Francis said in a morning homily. Priests must be especially merciful, he added, saying if that they weren’t, they should “never walk into a confessional, I beg you.”
Last April 11, at First Vespers of Divine Mercy Sunday (Second Sunday of Easter), Pope Francis presented the Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee of Mercy, entitled “Misericordiae Vultus” or “The Face of Mercy.”
This past week, Rome hosted two very different, but important meetings. The first was at the Vatican, chaired by Pope Francis himself, as a meeting of the Ordinary Council of the Synod of Bishops. This was a preparatory meeting held to get ready for October’s Synod on the vocation and mission of the family in the Church and Society.