Rome, Italy, Mar 11, 2019 / 09:24 am
A Benedictine abbot is leading Pope Francis and the Roman curia in Lenten spiritual exercises this week, with the theme of Christ's gaze and gestures in the life of the world.
"Let us allow ourselves to be looked at by Him. Jesus is our humanism," the Italian monk Bernardo Francesco Maria Gianni said in the first of his spiritual reflections March 10.
Gianni, the abbot of San Miniato al Monte Abbey in Florence, will provide two meditations each day of this week's papal retreat, which also includes daily Eucharistic adoration and Mass.
"Look at how He looked. Looking at the rich young man, He loved him; the meeting of eyes with Zacchaeus, who climbs up a tree to see the Lord Jesus, who looks up to meet him," the Gianni said.