Pope at Angelus: Love is God's dream for man
(Vatican Radio) Thousands of people joined Pope
Francis in St Peter’s Square on Sunday, for the weekly recitation of
the Angelus. With the sun peeking out through slightly overcast
skies, the Holy Father spoke on the Gospel reading for the Thirtieth
Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the day’s Gospel, Jesus is asked, “Teacher,
which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Pope Francis noted that the question was “insidious,”
because there were more than six hundred precepts in the Old Testament. But, he
said, “Jesus answers without hesitation: ‘You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’; and He adds,
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’.”
This response, the Pope continued, is not obvious, because
in some ways, the Ten Commandments, given directly by God to Moses, were the
most important, because they were conditions of the covenant between God and
His people. But, the Pope said, Jesus wants to make us understand that without
love of God and of our neighbour, there can be no true fidelity to the
covenant.
In answering the Pharisees who had posed the question, Jesus
sought to help them put their religious devotion in the right order; to help
them understand “what truly matters, and what is less important.” In fact, Pope
Francis said, Jesus’ own life was an example; His words and actions showed what
was truly essential: love. Love, the Pope said, “gives impetus and fruitfulness
to life and to the journey of faith: without love, both life and faith remain
sterile.”
The ideal proposed by Jesus corresponds “to the most
authentic desires of our heart,” the Pope continued. “In fact, we were created
precisely in order to love and to be loved. God, Who is Love, has created us in
order to make us partakers of His life, to be loved by Him and to love Him, and
to love with Him all other persons.” This, Pope Francis said, “is God’s dream
for man.”
But we can realize this dream only by being open to God’s
grace. It is only through His grace that we are able to receive within
ourselves the capacity to love. And it is precisely for this reason that Jesus
offers Himself to us in Holy Communion. In the Eucharist, the Pope said, “we
receive His Body and His Blood; that is, we receive Jesus in the greatest
expression of His Love, when He has offered Himself to the Father for our
salvation.”
Pope Francis concluded his remarks with the prayer that “the
Holy Virgin might help us to welcome in our lives the ‘great commandment’
of love of God and of our neighbour.”
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