Pope: Christians are always on the go in their journey
to meet the Lord
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said the life
of every Christian is a journey and a process during which to deepen the faith.
Speaking during the homily at morning Mass at the Casa
Santa Marta, the Pope reflected on the liturgical reading of the day in
which St. Paul tells the story of Salvation leading up to Jesus.
During the course of history, Pope Francis said, many of our
conceptions have changed. Slavery, for example, was a practice that was
accepted; in time we have come to understand that it is a mortal sin.
“God has made himself known throughout history” he said,
“His salvation” goes back a long way in time. And he referred to Paul’s
preaching in the Acts of the Apostles when he tells the God-fearing children of
Israel about the journey of their ancestors from the Exodus from Egypt until
the coming of the savior, Jesus.
The Pope said salvation has a great and a long history
during which the Lord “guided his people in good and in bad moments, in times
of freedom and of slavery: in a journey populated by “saints and by
sinners” on the road towards fullness, “towards the encounter with the Lord”.
At the end of the journey there is Jesus, he said, however:
“it doesn’t end there”.
In fact, Francis continued, Jesus gave us the Spirit who
allows to “remember and to understand Jesus’ message, and thus, a second
journey begins.
Slavery and the death penalty were once accepted; today
they are considered mortal sins
This journey undertaken "to understand, to deepen our
understanding of Jesus and to deepen our faith” serves also, Francis explained,
“to understand moral teaching, the Commandments.”
He pointed out that some things that “once seemed normal and
not sinful, are today conceived as mortal sins:
"Think of slavery: at school they told us what they did
with the slaves taking them from one place and selling them in another…. That
is a mortal sin” he said.
But that, he said, is what we believe today. Back then it
was deemed acceptable because people believed that some did not have a soul.
It was necessary, the Pope said, to move on to better
understand the faith and to better understand morality.
And reflecting bitterly on the fact that today “there are no
slaves”, Pope Francis pointed out there are in fact many more of them…. but at
least, he said, we know that to enslave someone is to commit a mortal sin.
The same goes for the death penalty: “once it was considered
normality; today we say that it is inadmissible” he said.
The people of God are always on a journey to deepen their
faith
The same concept, he added, can be applied to “wars of
religion”: as we go ahead deepening our faith and clarifying the dictates of
morality "there are saints, the saints we all know, as well as the hidden
saints."
The Church, he commented, “is full of hidden saints”, and it
is their holiness that will lead us to the “second fullness” when “the Lord
will ultimately come to be all in all”.
Thus, Pope Francis said "The people of God are always
on their way”.
When the people of God stop, he said, “they become like
prisoners in a stable, like donkeys”. In that situation they are unable to
understand, to go forward, to deepen their faith - and love and faith do not
purify their souls.
And, he said, there is a third “fullness of the times:
ours”.
Each of us, the Pope explained, “is on the way to the
fullness of our own time. Each of us will reach the moment in which life ends
and there we must find the Lord. Each of us is on the go.”
“Jesus, he noted, has sent the Holy Spirit to guide us on
our way” and he pointed out that the Church today is also on the go.
Confession is a step in our journey on the way to meet
the Lord
Pope Francis invited the faithful to ask themselves whether
during confession there is not only the shame for having sinned, but also the
understanding that in that moment they are taking a “step forward on the way to
the fullness of times”.
“To ask God for forgiveness is not something automatic” he
said.
“It means that I understand that I am on a journey, part of
a people that is on a journey” and sooner or later “I will find myself
face-to-face with God, who never leaves us alone, but always accompanies us” he
said.
And this, the Pope concluded, is the great work of God's
mercy.
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