Pope Audience: English language remarks

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis during his Wednesday General Audience continued his catecheseis on Christian hope and asked for prayers for this Week of Christian Unity.

Below find the Pope's English language remarks:

Dear Brothers and Sisters:  In our continuing catechesis on Christian hope, we reflect today on the story of the prophet Jonah, who sought to flee from a difficult mission entrusted to him by the Lord.  When the ship that Jonah had boarded was tossed by a storm, the pagan sailors asked him, as a man of God, to pray that they might escape sure death.  This story reminds us of the link between hope and prayer.  Anguish in the face of death often makes us recognize our human frailty and our need to pray for salvation.  Jonah prays on behalf of the sailors, and, taking up once more his prophetic mission, shows himself ready to sacrifice his life for their sake.  As a result, the sailors come to acknowledge the true God.  As the paschal mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection makes clear, death itself can be, for each of us, an invitation to hope and an encounter in prayer with the God of our salvation. 

Dear friends, today begins the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  In this same spirit of hope, and with gratitude for the progress already made in the ecumenical movement, I ask your prayers for this important intention.