Pope: Christians need not read horoscopes to foresee
the future
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday told
believers not to look to horoscopes or to consult fortune-tellers to foresee
the future; but to allow God to guide them in a journey full of surprises.
The Pope was speaking during the last Santa Marta
Mass of the season before the summer holidays and his return from an
apostolic visit to Colombia in September.
Inviting Christians not to be “too settled, stationary,
fixed,” Pope Francis reflected on the liturgical reading of the day in which
God asks Abraham to leave his country, his homeland, his father’s house and go
forth with his kinsfolk, and Abraham – who was seventy five years old – went,
as the Lord directed him.
“There is a Christian life-style” the Pope said, “a
life-style based on three dimensions: “renunciation”, “promise” and “blessing”.
"To be a Christian always implies this dimension of
stripping oneself” of something, it’s a dimension that reflects Jesus’s
renunciation on the Cross, he said.
There is always the need to “go forth”, to take a first step
and “'leave your land, your family, your father's house.”
The Bible and the Gospels, the Pope said, are full of
stories and episodes in which the prophets and the disciples are called to go
forth.
Christians, he continued, must a have the “capacity” to be
“stripped and to renounce” otherwise they are not “authentic Christians.”
Abraham, he said, obeyed the Lord in faith, and set out for
an unknown land to “receive an inheritance.”
"A Christian does not read the horoscope to foresee the
future; a Christian does not consult a fortune teller who looks into a crystal
ball or reads your palm…” the Pope said.
A Christian, he said, allows himself to be guided by God who
takes us on the path towards the fulfillment of his promise.
“We are men and women who walk towards a promise” he said –
the way Abraham walked towards a new land”.
And yet, Francis continued, Abraham did not build a house,
he pitched a tent, indicating that “he was on a journey and trusted God”;
he built an altar “to worship Him” and then he kept on walking: he was
always on the go.
The journey of a Christian, the Pope explained, starts anew every
morning, trusting in the Lord and open to his many surprises.
He pointed out that at times these surprises are good, at
others bad – “think of an illness or of a death” – he said – but we must always
be open because we know that He will take us to a safe place, to a land that
has been prepared especially for us.
Another trait of the Christian is that he or she always
carries a blessing. Christians speak well of the Lord and of others, and ask
for God’s blessing to go forward on their paths.
This, the Pope said, is the pattern of our Christian life
because everyone, “even lay people, must bless others, speak well of God and of
others.”
Too often, he added, we speak badly of our neighbor, “our
tongues wag too much” instead of following the order that God gave to “our
father” Abraham as a lesson for life:
“That of walking, of letting ourselves be stripped by the
Lord, of trusting in his promises and of being irreprehensible” he said.
“Deep down, Francis concluded, Christian life is so simple!”
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