This morning's General Audience began at 9:30am in the Paul VI Hall, where the Holy Father, Pope Francis met with groups of pilgrims and the faithful from Italy and from every corner of the world.
In his speech, the Pope continued the new cycle of catecheses on the Commandments, adding his meditation on idolatry (cf Ex 32:7-8).
After having summarized his catechesis in various languages, the Holy Father offered particular greetings to each group of the faithful who were in attendance.
The General Audience concluded with the chanting of the Pater Noster and the Apostolic blessing.
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
Today, we continue our meditation on the Decalogue, deepening the theme of idolatry which we spoke about last week. Now, let us look at this theme again because it is very important for us to know it. And let us take our cue from the idol par excellence, the golden calf that is mentioned in the Book of Exodus (Ex 32:1-8) - we have just heard a part of this story. This story has a precise context: the desert, where the people were waiting for Moses, who had climbed the mountain in order to receive instruction from God.
What is the desert? It is a place where fragility and insecurity dominate - there is nothing in the desert - no water, no food and no shelter. The desert is an image of human life, whose conditions are uncertain and who have no inviolable guarantees. This insecurity creates a primordial anxiety within the human heart, which Jesus mentions in the gospel: What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear? (Mt 6:31). These are primordial anxieties. The desert brings out these anxieties.
In the desert, something happens that triggers idolatry. Moses was slow to come down from the mountain (Ex 32:1). He remained there for 40 days and the people became impatient. They were missing Moses, their point of reference: their leader, their boss, their reassuring guide, and they themselves became unsustainable. The people asked for a visible god - this is the trap into which they fell - in order to identify and orient themselves. They said to Aaron: Make for us a god who travels on his head!, Make a leader. Human nature sought escape from precarious situations - the precariousness of the desert - by seeking a do-it-yourself religion: if God will not show himself, we will make ourselves a made-to-measure god. They have mouths but they cannot speak, they have eyes but they cannot see (Ps 115:5). We can understand the idol as a pretext to place ourselves at the centre of reality, in adoration of the work of our own hands (Lumen fidei, 13).
Aaron could not oppose the people's request; instead, he created the golden calf. The calf had a two-fold meaning in the ancient Middle East: on one hand, it represented fertility and abundance, and on the other hand, it stood for energy and strength. But above all, it was made of gold, so it was a symbol of wealth, success, power and money. These are the greatest idols: success, power and money. They have always been temptations! This is what the golden calf is: the symbol of all the desires that create the illusion of freedom while in reality leading to slavery, because an idol always enslaves. There is a certain charm and then we go on. It is the charm of a snake who looks at a bird and the bird is unable to move and then the snake catches it. Aaron did not know how to oppose this charm.
But everything begins in an inability above all else to trust in God, place our trust in him, to allow him to give true depth to the desires of our hearts. It also allows us to support weakness, uncertainty and even insecurity. Without God's primacy, we easily fall into idolatry and content ourselves with meagre achievements. But this is a temptation that we often read about in the Bible. We should think carefully about this: freeing his people from Egypt was not too much work for God; he did it with signs and power, out of love. But the great work of God was to remove Egypt from the hearts of the people, which is to say removing idolatry from them. Still today, God is at work removing this temptation from our hearts. This is the great work of God: taking the Egypt that we carry within us away from us, and this is the fascination that we call idolatry.
When we welcome the God of Jesus Christ, who was rich but made himself poor for our sake (cf 2 Cor 8:9), we discover that recognizing our weakness is not the fault of human life, but the condition that opens us up to the one who is truly strong. So is is that God's salvation enters through a doorway of weakness (cf 2 Cor 12:10); it is the result of our own insufficiency that we open ourselves to the presence of God. Man's freedom is born out of the exercise of allowing the true God to be our Lord. And this allows us to accept our own fragility and to reject the idols present in our own hearts.
We Christians turn our gaze toward the crucified Christ (cf Jn 19:37) who is weak, despised and who has been stripped of every possession. But in Him, the face of the true God is revealed, the glory of love and not the glory of shimmering deception. Isaiah says: Through your wounds we were healed (Is 53:5). We have been healed precisely by the weakness of a man who was God, as a result of his wounds. And in our weakness, we can open ourselves to God's salvation. Our healing comes from Him who made himself poor, who welcomed failure, who took our weakness to its extreme in order to fill it with love and strength. He comes to reveal the fatherhood of God, in Christ, our weakness is no longer a curse, but a place of encounter with the Father and a source of new strength from above.
The Holy Father's teaching was then summarized in various languages and His Holiness offered greetings to each group of the faithful in attendance. To English-speaking visitors, he said:
I greet all the English-speaking pilgrims taking part in today’s Audience, particularly the groups from Malta and Indonesia. Upon all of you, and your families, I invoke the joy and peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. God bless you all!
In his speech, the Pope continued the new cycle of catecheses on the Commandments, adding his meditation on idolatry (cf Ex 32:7-8).
After having summarized his catechesis in various languages, the Holy Father offered particular greetings to each group of the faithful who were in attendance.
The General Audience concluded with the chanting of the Pater Noster and the Apostolic blessing.
Catechesis of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for the General Audience
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
Today, we continue our meditation on the Decalogue, deepening the theme of idolatry which we spoke about last week. Now, let us look at this theme again because it is very important for us to know it. And let us take our cue from the idol par excellence, the golden calf that is mentioned in the Book of Exodus (Ex 32:1-8) - we have just heard a part of this story. This story has a precise context: the desert, where the people were waiting for Moses, who had climbed the mountain in order to receive instruction from God.
What is the desert? It is a place where fragility and insecurity dominate - there is nothing in the desert - no water, no food and no shelter. The desert is an image of human life, whose conditions are uncertain and who have no inviolable guarantees. This insecurity creates a primordial anxiety within the human heart, which Jesus mentions in the gospel: What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear? (Mt 6:31). These are primordial anxieties. The desert brings out these anxieties.
In the desert, something happens that triggers idolatry. Moses was slow to come down from the mountain (Ex 32:1). He remained there for 40 days and the people became impatient. They were missing Moses, their point of reference: their leader, their boss, their reassuring guide, and they themselves became unsustainable. The people asked for a visible god - this is the trap into which they fell - in order to identify and orient themselves. They said to Aaron: Make for us a god who travels on his head!, Make a leader. Human nature sought escape from precarious situations - the precariousness of the desert - by seeking a do-it-yourself religion: if God will not show himself, we will make ourselves a made-to-measure god. They have mouths but they cannot speak, they have eyes but they cannot see (Ps 115:5). We can understand the idol as a pretext to place ourselves at the centre of reality, in adoration of the work of our own hands (Lumen fidei, 13).
Aaron could not oppose the people's request; instead, he created the golden calf. The calf had a two-fold meaning in the ancient Middle East: on one hand, it represented fertility and abundance, and on the other hand, it stood for energy and strength. But above all, it was made of gold, so it was a symbol of wealth, success, power and money. These are the greatest idols: success, power and money. They have always been temptations! This is what the golden calf is: the symbol of all the desires that create the illusion of freedom while in reality leading to slavery, because an idol always enslaves. There is a certain charm and then we go on. It is the charm of a snake who looks at a bird and the bird is unable to move and then the snake catches it. Aaron did not know how to oppose this charm.
But everything begins in an inability above all else to trust in God, place our trust in him, to allow him to give true depth to the desires of our hearts. It also allows us to support weakness, uncertainty and even insecurity. Without God's primacy, we easily fall into idolatry and content ourselves with meagre achievements. But this is a temptation that we often read about in the Bible. We should think carefully about this: freeing his people from Egypt was not too much work for God; he did it with signs and power, out of love. But the great work of God was to remove Egypt from the hearts of the people, which is to say removing idolatry from them. Still today, God is at work removing this temptation from our hearts. This is the great work of God: taking the Egypt that we carry within us away from us, and this is the fascination that we call idolatry.
When we welcome the God of Jesus Christ, who was rich but made himself poor for our sake (cf 2 Cor 8:9), we discover that recognizing our weakness is not the fault of human life, but the condition that opens us up to the one who is truly strong. So is is that God's salvation enters through a doorway of weakness (cf 2 Cor 12:10); it is the result of our own insufficiency that we open ourselves to the presence of God. Man's freedom is born out of the exercise of allowing the true God to be our Lord. And this allows us to accept our own fragility and to reject the idols present in our own hearts.
We Christians turn our gaze toward the crucified Christ (cf Jn 19:37) who is weak, despised and who has been stripped of every possession. But in Him, the face of the true God is revealed, the glory of love and not the glory of shimmering deception. Isaiah says: Through your wounds we were healed (Is 53:5). We have been healed precisely by the weakness of a man who was God, as a result of his wounds. And in our weakness, we can open ourselves to God's salvation. Our healing comes from Him who made himself poor, who welcomed failure, who took our weakness to its extreme in order to fill it with love and strength. He comes to reveal the fatherhood of God, in Christ, our weakness is no longer a curse, but a place of encounter with the Father and a source of new strength from above.
The Holy Father's teaching was then summarized in various languages and His Holiness offered greetings to each group of the faithful in attendance. To English-speaking visitors, he said:
I greet all the English-speaking pilgrims taking part in today’s Audience, particularly the groups from Malta and Indonesia. Upon all of you, and your families, I invoke the joy and peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. God bless you all!
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