Pope: Ideological faith adores a 'disincarnate' god
(Vatican Radio) The compass of the Christian directs him to
follow Christ crucified, not a disincarnate god, but God made flesh, Who bears
in Himself the wounds of our brothers. That was the message of Pope Francis at
the morning Mass at the Casa Santa Marta on Thursday.
The invitation to be converted resounds strongly at the
beginning of Lent. And the liturgy of the day, Pope Francis said, places this
exhortation in the context of three realities: man, God, and the journey. The
reality of man is that of choosing between good and evil: God has made us free,
the choice is ours,” the Pope said, but He does not leave it to us alone;
rather, he points out the path of goodness with the Commandments. Then there is
the reality of God: “for the disciples, it was difficult to understand” the
path of the Cross of Jesus. “Because God has taken all of human reality, except
sin. There is no God without Christ. A God without Christ, ‘disincarnate,’ is a
god that is not real”:
“The reality of God is God made Christ, for us. To save
us. And when we distance ourselves from this, from this reality, and we
distance ourselves from the Cross of Christ, from the truth of the wounds of
the Lord, we distance ourselves also from love, from the charity [carità] of
God, from salvation and going along an ideological street from God, far away: [This] is
not God who came to us and made Himself close to us to save us, and died for
us. This [God made Christ for us, to save us] is the reality
of God.”
The Pope cited the dialogue between an agnostic and a
believer, recorded by a French writer of the last century:
“The agnostic of good will asked the believer, ‘But how
can I… for me, the problem is how Christ is God: I can’t understand this. How
is Christ God?’ And the believer responded, ‘Eh, for me this is not a problem.
The problem would be if God would not have been made Christ.’ This is the reality
of God: God made Christ, God made flesh; and this is the foundation of the
works of mercy. The wounds of our brothers are the wounds of Christ, they are
the wounds of God, because God is made Christ. The second reality. We cannot
live Lent without this reality. We must convert, not to an abstract God, but to
the concrete God who is made Christ.”
Finally, there is the third reality, that of the journey.
Jesus says, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take
up his cross daily and follow Me.”:
“The reality of the journey is that of Christ: following
Christ, doing the will of the Father, as He did, taking up the daily crosses
and denying oneself in order to follow Christ. Not doing what I want, but what
Jesus wants; following Jesus. And He says that on this street we lose our life,
in order to gain it back later; it is a continual loss of life, loss of doing
what I want, loss of comforts, being always on the path of Jesus who was at the
service of others, [who was] was in adoration of God. That is
the right path.”
“The only sure path,” Pope Francis concluded, “is following
Christ crucified, the scandal of the Cross. And these three realities – man,
God, and the journey – “are the compass of the Christian, which will not allow
us to take the wrong path.
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