Pope Francis described what followed Cain's evil action, explaining that from his lineage, "evil spreads like wildfire, until it occupies the whole picture."
There is the need for a new beginning, a new creation, which will have its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, he noted. "Yet, in these first pages of the Bible, another story is written, less conspicuous, much more humble and devoted, which represents the redemption of hope."
"Even if almost everyone behaves in a brutal way, making hatred and conquest the great engine of human affairs, there are people capable of praying to God with sincerity, capable of writing man's destiny in a different way," he said.
He pointed to the birth of Adam and Eve's third son, Seth, who later had his own son, named Enos, meaning "mortal."
In Genesis, it is written that from the birth of Enos, "people began to invoke the name of the Lord." Enos also had a cousin, Enoch, who is a person who "walks with God," according to Scripture.
"And finally there is the story of Noah, a righteous man who 'walked with God,' before whom God holds back his purpose of erasing humanity," Francis said.
"And prayer is powerful," he underlined, "because it attracts the power of God and the power of God always gives life: always."
"This is why the lordship of God passes through the chain of these men and women, often misunderstood or marginalized in the world," he said.
These men and women are not headline-makers, according to the pope, "but the world lives and grows thanks to the strength of God that these servants of his draw with their prayer."
"The path of God in the history of God passed through them: it passed through a 'remnant' of humanity that did not conform to the law of the fittest, but asked God to perform his miracles, and above all to transform our heart of stone in the heart of flesh," he concluded.
At the end of the general audience, in his greeting to Italian-speaking pilgrims, Pope Francis recalled that May 29 is the memorial of St. Pope Paul VI, who was canonized in 2018.
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"May the example of this Bishop of Rome, who has reached the heights of holiness, encourage each one of us to embrace the Gospel ideals," he urged.
Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency's senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.