Pope
Francis: Let us allow Jesus to cleanse our hearts
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday based his Angelus address
on the Gospel account of Jesus cleansing the Temple. Jesus’ prophetic words and
actions, the Pope said, which refer to His death and resurrection, “are fully
understood in the light of His Pasch.” Jesus Christ Himself, in His
Resurrection, becomes the meeting place between God and man.
During Lent, the Pope continued, we prepare for Easter, when we
will renew our baptismal promises. The Holy Father called on each of us to
follow Jesus, so that people might encounter God in us and in our witness. But
this leads us to ask ourselves if we allow the Lord “to ‘cleanse’ our hearts
and to drive out the idols, those attitudes of cupidity, jealousy, worldliness,
envy, hatred, those habits of gossiping and tearing down others.” Jesus, the
Pope said, cleanses our hearts not with a whip, as He cleansed the Temple, but
with tenderness, mercy, and love.
“Every Eucharist that we celebrate with faith makes us grow as a
living temple of the Lord,” the Pope said, “thanks to the communion with His
crucified and risen Body… Let us allow Him to enter into our lives, into our
families, into our hearts.”
Below, please find the complete text of the Pope’s Angelus
address for Sunday, 8 March 2015:
Dear brothers and sisters,
Today’s Gospel presents the episode of the of the expulsion of
the merchants from the temple (Jn 2:13-25). Jesus “made a whip out of cords and
drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen” (Jn 2:15), the
money, everything. Such a gesture gave rise to strong impressions in the people
and in the disciples. It clearly appeared as a prophetic gesture, so much so
that some of those present asked Jesus: “[But] what sign can you show us for
doing this?” (v. 18), who are you to do these things? Show us a sign that you
have authority to do them. They are seeking a divine sign, a prodigy that would
certify Jesus as being sent by God. And He responded: “Destroy this temple and
in three days I will raise it up” (v. 19). They replied: “This temple has been
under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three
days?” (v. 20). They had not understood that the Lord was referring to the
living temple of His body, that would be destroyed in the death on the Cross,
but would be raised on the third day. For this, in “three days.” “When He was
raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they
came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken” (v. 22).
In effect, this gesture of Jesus and His prophetic message are
fully understood in the light of His Pasch. We have here, according to the
evangelist John, the first proclamation of the death and resurrection of
Christ: His body, destroyed on the Cross by the violence of sin, will become in
the Resurrection the universal meeting place between God and men. And the Risen
Christ is Himself the universal meeting place – for everyone! – between God and
men. For this reason, His humanity is the true temple where God is revealed,
speaks, is encountered; and the true worshippers, the true worshippers of God
are not only the guardians of the material temple, the keepers of power and of
religious knowledge, [but] they are those who worship God “in spirit and truth”
(Jn 4:23).
In this time of Lent we are preparing for the celebration of
Easter, when we will renew the promises of our Baptism. Let us travel in the
world as Jesus did, and let us make our whole existence a sign of our love for
our brothers, especially the weakest and poorest, let us build for God a temple
of our lives. And so we make it “encounterable” for those who we find along our
journey. If we are witnesses of this living Christ, so many people will
encounter Jesus in us, in our witness. But, we ask – and each one of us can ask
ourselves – does the Lord feel at home in my life? Do we allow Him to “cleanse”
our hearts and to drive out the idols, those attitudes of cupidity, jealousy,
worldliness, envy, hatred, those habits of gossiping and tearing down others.
Do I allow Him to cleanse all the behaviours that are against God, against our
neighbour, and against ourselves, as we heard today in the first Reading? Each
one can answer for himself, in the silence of his heart: “Do I allow Jesus to
make my heart a little cleaner?” “Oh Father, I fear the rod!” But Jesus never
strikes. Jesus cleanses with tenderness, with mercy, with love. Mercy is the
His way of cleansing. Let us, each of us, let us allow the Lord to enter with
His mercy – not with the whip, no, with His mercy – to cleanse our hearts. The
whip of Jesus with us is His mercy. Let us open to Him the gates so that He
would make us a little cleaner.
Every Eucharist that we celebrate with faith makes us grow as a
living temple of the Lord, thanks to the communion with His crucified and risen
Body. Jesus recognizes that which is in each of us, and knows well our most
ardent desires: that of being inhabited by Him, only by Him. Let us allow Him
to enter into our lives, into our families, into our hearts. May Mary most
holy, the privileged dwelling place of the Son of God, accompany us and sustain
us on the Lenten journey, so that we might be able to rediscover the beauty of
the encounter with Christ, the only One Who frees us and saves us.
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