This morning's General Audience began at 9:30am in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, 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 concluded the cycle of catecheses on the Ten Commandments, adding his meditation on the theme: The new law in Christ and desires according to the Spirit (Biblical passage: Galatians 5:15-18, 22-23).
After having summarized His catechesis in various languages, the Holy Father offered particular greetings to each group of the faithful in attendance.
The General Audience concluded with the chanting of the Pater Noster and the Apostolic blessing.
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
In today's catechesis, which concludes our journey through the Ten Commandments, we can define our key theme as desires, which allows us to retrace the journey we have made and summarize the steps taken by reading the text of the Decalogue in the light of full revelation in Christ .
We began with gratitude as the basis of the relationship of trust and obedience: God, we have seen, does not ask for anything before already having given us much more. He invites us to obedience in order to redeem ourselves from the deception of idolatries that have so much power over us. In fact, to seek our own fulfillment in the idols of this world empties us and enslaves us, while what gives us stature and consistency is the relationship with Him who, in Christ, makes us children, and God our father (cf Eph 3:14-16).
This implies a process of blessings and freedoms which are the sources of true and authentic rest. As the Psalm says: Only in God will my soul find rest: from him comes my salvation (Ps 62:2).
This liberated life becomes the acceptance of our personal history and reconciles us with what, from infancy to the present, we have lived, making us adults and capable of giving the right weight to the realities and people who are part of our lives. Following this path we enter into the relationship with the neighbour who, starting from the love that God shows in Jesus Christ, is a call to the beauty of fidelity, generosity and authenticity.
But in order to live this way - that is, in the beauty of fidelity, generosity and authenticity - we need a new heart, inhabited by the Holy Spirit (cf Ez 11,19; 36,26). I wonder: what does this transplant of heart, from the old heart to the new heart, look like? Through the gift of new desires (cf Rom 8:6); which are sown in us by the grace of God, especially through the Ten Commandments brought to completion by Jesus, as He teaches in the Sermon on the Mount (cf Mt 5:17-48). In fact, in contemplating the life described in the Decalogue, that is a grateful, free, authentic, blessed, adult life; a guardian and lover of life who is faithful, generous and sincere; we - almost without realizing it - find ourselves standing before Christ. The Decalogue is his X-ray, he describes it as a photographic negative that allows his face to appear - like the Holy Shroud. And so the Holy Spirit feeds our hearts by putting in them the desires that are his gifts, the desires of the Spirit. To desire according to the Spirit, to desire at the rhythm of the Spirit, to desire with the music of the Spirit.
Looking at Christ we see beauty, goodness and truth. And the Spirit generates a life which, following these desires, triggers hope, faith and love in us.
Thus we discover what it means that the Lord Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, to make it grow, and while the law according to the flesh was a series of prescriptions and prohibitions, according to the Spirit, this same law leads us to life (cf Jn 6:63; Eph 2:15), because it is no longer a norm but the very flesh of Christ, who loves us, seeks us, forgives us, comforts and reconciles us in his Body, promoting communion with the Father, which was lost through the disobedience of sin. And so the literary negativity, the negativity in the expression of the commandments - do not steal, do not insult, do not kill - that not becomes a positive attitude: love, make room for others in my heart, all desires that sow positivity. And this is the fullness of the law that Jesus came to bring us.
In Christ, and only in him, the Decalogue stops being condemned (cf Rom 8: 1) and becomes the authentic truth of human life, that is, the desire for love - thus is born a desire for good, to do good - a desire for joy, a desire for peace, magnanimity, benevolence, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control. From those no's we pass on to a yes: the positive attitude of a heart that opens with the power of the Holy Spirit.
This is why we must look for Christ in the Decalogue: to nourish our hearts so that they may be full of love, and open to the work of God. When man favours the desire to live according to Christ, he opens the door to salvation, which will always arrive, because God the Father is generous and, as the Catechism says, he thirsts for us to be thirsty for him (Catechesis of the Catholic Church, 2560).
If it is evil desires that ruin mankind (cf Mt 15:18-20), the Holy Spirit lays down in our hearts his holy desires, which are the seeds of new life (cf 1 Jn 3:9). New life in fact is not a titanic effort to be consistent with a norm; instead, new life is the Spirit of God who begins to guide us to its fruits, in a happy synergy between our joy of being loved and his joy of loving us. We meet the two joys: the joy of God to love for us and our joy of being loved.
This is what the Decalogue is for us Christians: contemplating Christ in order to open ourselves so that we can receive his heart, so that we can receive his desires, so that we can receive his Holy Spirit.
The Holy Father's teaching was then summarized in various languages, and he offered greetings to each group of the faithful in attendance. To English-speaking pilgrims, he said:
I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, especially those from England, Australia and the United States of America. Upon all of you, and your families, I invoke the Lord’s blessings of joy and peace. God bless you!
In his speech, the Pope concluded the cycle of catecheses on the Ten Commandments, adding his meditation on the theme: The new law in Christ and desires according to the Spirit (Biblical passage: Galatians 5:15-18, 22-23).
After having summarized His catechesis in various languages, the Holy Father offered particular greetings to each group of the faithful 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!
In today's catechesis, which concludes our journey through the Ten Commandments, we can define our key theme as desires, which allows us to retrace the journey we have made and summarize the steps taken by reading the text of the Decalogue in the light of full revelation in Christ .
We began with gratitude as the basis of the relationship of trust and obedience: God, we have seen, does not ask for anything before already having given us much more. He invites us to obedience in order to redeem ourselves from the deception of idolatries that have so much power over us. In fact, to seek our own fulfillment in the idols of this world empties us and enslaves us, while what gives us stature and consistency is the relationship with Him who, in Christ, makes us children, and God our father (cf Eph 3:14-16).
This implies a process of blessings and freedoms which are the sources of true and authentic rest. As the Psalm says: Only in God will my soul find rest: from him comes my salvation (Ps 62:2).
This liberated life becomes the acceptance of our personal history and reconciles us with what, from infancy to the present, we have lived, making us adults and capable of giving the right weight to the realities and people who are part of our lives. Following this path we enter into the relationship with the neighbour who, starting from the love that God shows in Jesus Christ, is a call to the beauty of fidelity, generosity and authenticity.
But in order to live this way - that is, in the beauty of fidelity, generosity and authenticity - we need a new heart, inhabited by the Holy Spirit (cf Ez 11,19; 36,26). I wonder: what does this transplant of heart, from the old heart to the new heart, look like? Through the gift of new desires (cf Rom 8:6); which are sown in us by the grace of God, especially through the Ten Commandments brought to completion by Jesus, as He teaches in the Sermon on the Mount (cf Mt 5:17-48). In fact, in contemplating the life described in the Decalogue, that is a grateful, free, authentic, blessed, adult life; a guardian and lover of life who is faithful, generous and sincere; we - almost without realizing it - find ourselves standing before Christ. The Decalogue is his X-ray, he describes it as a photographic negative that allows his face to appear - like the Holy Shroud. And so the Holy Spirit feeds our hearts by putting in them the desires that are his gifts, the desires of the Spirit. To desire according to the Spirit, to desire at the rhythm of the Spirit, to desire with the music of the Spirit.
Looking at Christ we see beauty, goodness and truth. And the Spirit generates a life which, following these desires, triggers hope, faith and love in us.
Thus we discover what it means that the Lord Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, to make it grow, and while the law according to the flesh was a series of prescriptions and prohibitions, according to the Spirit, this same law leads us to life (cf Jn 6:63; Eph 2:15), because it is no longer a norm but the very flesh of Christ, who loves us, seeks us, forgives us, comforts and reconciles us in his Body, promoting communion with the Father, which was lost through the disobedience of sin. And so the literary negativity, the negativity in the expression of the commandments - do not steal, do not insult, do not kill - that not becomes a positive attitude: love, make room for others in my heart, all desires that sow positivity. And this is the fullness of the law that Jesus came to bring us.
In Christ, and only in him, the Decalogue stops being condemned (cf Rom 8: 1) and becomes the authentic truth of human life, that is, the desire for love - thus is born a desire for good, to do good - a desire for joy, a desire for peace, magnanimity, benevolence, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control. From those no's we pass on to a yes: the positive attitude of a heart that opens with the power of the Holy Spirit.
This is why we must look for Christ in the Decalogue: to nourish our hearts so that they may be full of love, and open to the work of God. When man favours the desire to live according to Christ, he opens the door to salvation, which will always arrive, because God the Father is generous and, as the Catechism says, he thirsts for us to be thirsty for him (Catechesis of the Catholic Church, 2560).
If it is evil desires that ruin mankind (cf Mt 15:18-20), the Holy Spirit lays down in our hearts his holy desires, which are the seeds of new life (cf 1 Jn 3:9). New life in fact is not a titanic effort to be consistent with a norm; instead, new life is the Spirit of God who begins to guide us to its fruits, in a happy synergy between our joy of being loved and his joy of loving us. We meet the two joys: the joy of God to love for us and our joy of being loved.
This is what the Decalogue is for us Christians: contemplating Christ in order to open ourselves so that we can receive his heart, so that we can receive his desires, so that we can receive his Holy Spirit.
The Holy Father's teaching was then summarized in various languages, and he offered greetings to each group of the faithful in attendance. To English-speaking pilgrims, he said:
I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, especially those from England, Australia and the United States of America. Upon all of you, and your families, I invoke the Lord’s blessings of joy and peace. God bless you!
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