GENERAL AUDIENCE POPE
FRANCIS
Saint Peter's Square Wednesday,
15 March 2017
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| Vatikan, FOTO: pixabayfree |
Christian hope - 14.
Rejoice in hope (cf. Rom 12, 9-13)
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Good morning!
We know well that the great
commandment the Lord Jesus left us is the one about love: to love God with all
our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind, and to love our neighbour
as ourselves (cf. Mt 22:37-39); namely, we are called to love, to exercise
charity. And this is our loftiest vocation, our vocation par excellence;
and it is also tied to the joy of Christian hope. One who loves has the joy of
hope, of reaching the encounter with the great love that is the Lord.
The Apostle Paul, in the
passage of the Letter to the Romans that we have just heard, puts us on guard:
there is a risk that our charity may be hypocritical, that our love may be
hypocritical. So we must ask: when does this hypocrisy happen? And how can we
be certain that our love is sincere, that our charity is authentic? That we are
not pretending to do charity or that our love is not for show: sincere, strong
love....
Hypocrisy can insinuate itself
anywhere, even in our world of love. This happens when our love is
motivated by interest, by self-interest; and how much interested love there is
... when the service to charity, which we seem to carry out generously, is done
in order to draw attention to ourselves or to feel good: ‘Oh, how good I am!’.
No, this is hypocrisy! Or also when we aspire to things with “visibility” so as
to put our intelligence or our abilities on display. Behind all this there is a
false, misleading idea, thinking that since we love, we are good — as though
charity were a manmade creation, a product of our heart. Charity, instead, is
first and foremost a grace, a gift; being able to love is a gift of
God, and we must ask for it. He gives it freely, if we ask for it. Charity is a
grace: it does not consist in showing off, but in what the Lord gives us and
which we freely receive; and it cannot be extended to others if it is not first
generated by the encounter with the meek and merciful face of Jesus.
Paul invites us to
recognize that we are sinners, and also that our way of loving is marked by
sin. At the same time, however, one becomes the bearer of a new
message, a message of hope: the Lord opens before us a new path of freedom,
a path of salvation. It is the opportunity for us too to live the great
commandment of love, to become instruments of God’s charity. And this happens
when we let our heart be healed and renewed by the Risen Christ. The Risen Lord
who lives among us, who lives with us is capable of healing our heart: He does
so, if we ask it. It is He who allows us, even in our littleness and poverty,
to experience the Father’s compassion and to celebrate the wonders of his love.
And thus we understand that all we can live and do for our brothers and sisters
is but the response to what God has done and continues to do for us. Rather, it
is God himself who, abiding in our heart and our life, continues to be close
and to serve all those whom we encounter each day on our journey, beginning
with the least and the neediest, in whom He is first recognized.
Thus, with these words,
rather than reproach us, the Apostle Paul wants to encourage us and
rekindle hope in us. Indeed, everyone has the experience of not living the
commandment of love fully or as we should. But this too is a grace, because it
makes us understand that we are incapable of truly loving by ourselves: we need
the Lord constantly to renew this gift in our heart, through the experience of
his infinite mercy. Then, indeed, we will return to appreciate small things,
simple, ordinary things; we will once more appreciate all these little,
everyday things and we will be capable of loving others as God loves them,
wanting their good, that is, that they be holy, friends of God; and we will be
glad of the opportunity to make ourselves close to those who are poor and
humble, as Jesus does with each one of us when we are distant from Him, to
stoop to the feet of our brothers and sisters, as He, the Good Samaritan, does
with each of us, with his compassion and his forgiveness.
Dear brothers and sisters,
what the Apostle Paul reminded us of is the secret for — I shall use his words
— it is the secret for “rejoicing in hope” (cf. Rom 12:12); rejoicing in
hope. The joy of hope: because we know that in all circumstances, even the most
adverse, and also through our own failures, God’s love never fails.
Therefore, with his grace
and his fidelity dwelling and abiding in our heart, let us live in the joyful
hope of reciprocating in our brothers and sisters, through the little we can,
the abundance we receive from Him each day. Thank you.
Special greetings:
I greet the
English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience,
particularly the groups from England, Sweden, Canada and the United States of
America. I offer a special welcome to the many student groups present. With
prayerful good wishes that this Lent will be a time of grace and spiritual
renewal for you and your families, I invoke upon all of you joy and peace in
our Lord Jesus Christ. God bless you all!
I address a cordial welcome
to the Italian-speaking pilgrims. I am pleased to welcome the participants of
the Conference sponsored by the Focolare Movement on the occasion of the 50th
anniversary of its foundation and I exhort them to witness to the beauty of new
families, guided by the peace and love of Christ. Carry on in this way!
I offer a special thought
to the employees of “Sky Italia”, and I hope their employment situation may
find a rapid resolution, with respect for the rights of all, especially of
families. Work gives us dignity, and the authorities responsible for the
people, the government leaders, have the obligation to do everything possible
so that every man and woman may have work and thus hold their heads high, look
others in the face with dignity. Those who, through economic manoeuvres, with
negotiations that are not entirely clear, close factories, close businesses and
take away people’s jobs, commit an extremely serious sin.
Lastly, I extend a greeting
to young people, to the sick and to newlyweds.
The liturgical Season of Lent favours drawing closer to God: fast not only from
meals, but above all from bad habits, dear young people, so as to
acquire greater mastery over yourselves; may prayer be for you, dear sick
people, the means to feel God’s closures, particularly in suffering; may
the exercise of the works of mercy help you, dear newlyweds, may
your conjugal existence be open to the needs of your brothers and sisters.
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