Photo credit: ABC News

– “Pope Francis describes wish for ‘poor church for the poor'”
Pope Francis said Saturday he wanted ‘a poor church for the poor’ in his first remarks to the media since he was elected leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

Wearing simple white robes and plain black shoes, he explained how he decided to name himself after St. Francis of Assisi: When he reached two-thirds of the vote in the conclave, a fellow cardinal embraced him and said, “Don’t forget the poor.”

‘That’s when I thought of Francis of Assisi,’ he said. ‘And that is how the name came to me: Francis of Assisi, the man of poverty, of peace.’

He added: ‘This is what I want, a poor church for the poor,'” quoting Claudio Lavanga and Marian Smith, NBC News.
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– UPDATE: April 4, 2013
“Pope stresses “fundamental” value of women”
“Pope Francis has stressed the “fundamental” importance of women in the Roman Catholic Church, a message hailed as a significant shift from the position of his predecessor Benedict.”

“The head of the Women’s Ordination Conference, which calls for women to be treated equally in the Church and to be allowed to become priests and bishops, said Francis’s words were the most encouraging she had heard in her lifetime, but did not go far enough.

‘While the pope was trying to be positive about women’s role, where he’s actually wrong is that women were actually disciples, like Mary Magdalene,’ WOC Executive Director Erin Saiz Hanna said. quoting One News in New Zealand.
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– Ramtha: To live as Saint Francis is to became in love with all of life
“You do not know what it is to live in the intoxication of being God. You do not know what it is to live as Saint Francis, who became in love with all of life, with all lifeforms, with the dew of the morning and the feather of the bluebird, to be in love with the stone and the humbleness, that all life was his lover. You fractionalize that feeling and put it as a responsibility on other people. Then you work very hard to try to maintain a relationship.

You work hard to maintain the magic that shouldn’t be worked at, at all. It should flow. When it flows, it comes like a river. It is intoxicating, it is sweet, and it is fulfilling on all levels. When you start chasing it, you lose it. Then you are in need, in lack, and you are casting the burden of that fulfillment on another human being instead of being the one who should be fulfilling yourself.”
– Ramtha
Primary Retreat
“The Mystery of Love”
Yelm, WA.
February 17, 1996