At the end of Mass on Holy Thursday in Rome, Pope Francis announced that he will cataract surgery sometime next year, the Holy See’s press office reported.
Before leaving the Regina Coeli prison in Rome, where he had celebrated the Lord’s Supper, the Supreme Pontiff reflected on the phrase “clear our eyes” in his final greeting to the director and an inmate.
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“At my age,” he explained, “cataracts arrive, and one no longer sees reality well: next year we will have to undergo an operation.”
A cataract is a darkening of the internal lens of the eye, which must be removed and replaced by an artificial lens.
“So is it also for the soul,” continued the pope: the travail of life, fatigue, mistakes, and disappointments darken our eyes, the eyes of the soul. The pontiff recommended we clear or eyes daily, by a “cataract operation for the soul.”
According to him, this is way of seeing that “opens us to hope,” which sees the glass as “half full.” In the same way, he added, a prison sentence that is not open to hope “is not Christian, is not human.” This is especially true for the death penalty, he insisted. “We must sow hope. Always, always.”
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