This morning's General Audience took place in two distinct moments. At 9:10am (3:10am EST), inside the Vatican Basilica, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received those who participating in the pilgrimage of the Archdiocese of Beevento.
At 9:45am (3:45am EST), inside the Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father met with groups of pilgrims and the faithful from Italy and from other corners of the world.
In his speech, the Pope continued his catechesis on the Our Father, adding his meditation on the theme: Father who is in heaven (Is 49:14-16).
After summarizing 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!
Today's audience is taking part in two places. First, I had a meeting with the faithful of Benevento, which was held in Saint Peter's Basilica, and now, I am with you. And this is thanks to the delicate work of the Prefecture of the Papal Household which did not wish you to be cold: let us thank them, the ones who made this decision. Thank you.
Let us continue the catechesis on the Our Father. The first step of every Christian prayer is entering into a mystery, the mystery of the fatherhood of God. We cannot pray like parrots. Either we enter into the mystery, into awareness of the fact that God is our Father, or we do not pray. If I want to pray to God my Father, I enter into the mystery. In order for us to understand the extent to which God is our Father, we can think about our own parents, but we must always refine this image, purify it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church also says: The purification of the heart concerns both paternal and maternal images, as they are configured in our personal and cultural history, and which influence our relationship with God (cf Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2779).
None of us has perfect parents, no one; and none of us either will ever be perfect parents or pastors. We all have defects, all of us. Our relationships of love are always lived according to our own limits and our own egos, therefore they are often polluted by desires to possess or to manipulate another person. This is the reason why our declarations of love sometimes turn into feelings of anger and hostility. But watch out, two people loved each other very much last week, but today, they could kill each other: we see this kind of thing every day! That's why, because we all have bitter roots within us, roots that are not always good and sometimes they extend outward and do harm.
That's why, when we talk about God as our Father, while we think of the image of our parents, especially if they loved us, at the same time we have to go further. Because the love of God is that of the Father who is in heaven, according to the expression that Jesus invites us to use: it is the total love that we can taste only imperfectly in this life. Men and women are eternally beggars in search of love, - we are beggars for love, we need love - we look for a place to finally be loved, but we do not find it. How many friendships and how many disappointed loves there are in our world; many!
In mythology, he Greek god of love is the most tragic of all it is not clear whether he is an angelic being or a demon. Mythology says that he is the son of Poros and of Penía, that is of cunning and of poverty, destined to bring in himself some of the physiognomy of these parents. From here we can think of the ambivalent nature of human love: capable of flowering and of overbearing life in one hour of the day, and immediately afterwards withering and dying; the one that seizes it, always escapes it (cf Plato, Symposium, 203). There is an expression of the prophet Hosea that ruthlessly frames the congenital weakness of our love: Your love is like a cloud of the morning, like the dew that fades at dawn (Hosea 6:4). Here is what our love is often: a promise that struggles to keep, an attempt that soon dries up and evaporates, a bit like when the sun comes out in the morning and takes away the night dew.
How many times we human beings have loved in such a weak and intermittent manner. We all have known the experience: we loved but then that love fell or became weak. Desiring to love, we then clashed with our limits, with the poverty of our forces: unable to keep a promise that in the days of grace it seemed easy to achieve. After all, even the apostle Peter was afraid and had to flee. The apostle Peter was not faithful to the love of Jesus. There is always this weakness that makes us fall. We are beggars who, along the path, are likely to never completely find the treasure we seek from the first day of our lives: love.
However, there is another love, that of the Father who is in heaven. No one should doubt that he is the recipient of this love. He loves us. He loves me, we can say. If even our father and mother had not loved us - a historical hypothesis -, there is a God in heaven who loves us as no one on earth has ever loved us and can ever love us. God's love is constant. The prophet Isaiah says: Even if a woman may forget her child, so as not to be moved by the son of her womb ... even if these forget, I will never forget you. Behold, on the palms of my hands I have drawn you (Is 49:15-16). Today tattoos is in fashion: I have drawn you on the palms of my hands. I made a tattoo of you on my hands. I am in God's hands, and I can not take it away. The love of God is like the love of a mother, which can never be forgotten. What if a mother forgets? I will not forget, says the Lord. This is the perfect love of God, so we are loved by Him. Even if all our earthly loves should crumble and do not remain in our hands anything but dust, there is always for all of us, the unique and faithful love of God.
In the hunger for love that we all feel, we do not look for something that does not exist: it is instead an invitation to know God who is a father. The conversion of Saint Augustine, for example, has passed through this ridge: the young and brilliant rhetorician simply sought among the creatures something that no creature could give him, until one day he had the courage to look up. And on that day he knew God. God who loves.
The expression in the skies does not seek to express a distance, but a radical diversity of love, another dimension of love, a tireless love, a love that will always remain, indeed, that is always within reach. Just say, Our Father who art in Heaven, and that love comes.
Therefore, do not be afraid! None of us is alone. If even for misfortune your earthly father had forgotten you and you were in resentment with him, you are not denied the fundamental experience of the Christian faith: that of knowing that you are a beloved child of God, and that there is nothing in life that can extinguish his passionate love for you.
The Holy Father's catechesis was then summarized and His Holiness offered greetings to each group of the faithful in attendance. To English-speaking visitors, he said:
I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, especially those from England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada 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!
At 9:45am (3:45am EST), inside the Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father met with groups of pilgrims and the faithful from Italy and from other corners of the world.
In his speech, the Pope continued his catechesis on the Our Father, adding his meditation on the theme: Father who is in heaven (Is 49:14-16).
After summarizing 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!
Today's audience is taking part in two places. First, I had a meeting with the faithful of Benevento, which was held in Saint Peter's Basilica, and now, I am with you. And this is thanks to the delicate work of the Prefecture of the Papal Household which did not wish you to be cold: let us thank them, the ones who made this decision. Thank you.
Let us continue the catechesis on the Our Father. The first step of every Christian prayer is entering into a mystery, the mystery of the fatherhood of God. We cannot pray like parrots. Either we enter into the mystery, into awareness of the fact that God is our Father, or we do not pray. If I want to pray to God my Father, I enter into the mystery. In order for us to understand the extent to which God is our Father, we can think about our own parents, but we must always refine this image, purify it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church also says: The purification of the heart concerns both paternal and maternal images, as they are configured in our personal and cultural history, and which influence our relationship with God (cf Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2779).
None of us has perfect parents, no one; and none of us either will ever be perfect parents or pastors. We all have defects, all of us. Our relationships of love are always lived according to our own limits and our own egos, therefore they are often polluted by desires to possess or to manipulate another person. This is the reason why our declarations of love sometimes turn into feelings of anger and hostility. But watch out, two people loved each other very much last week, but today, they could kill each other: we see this kind of thing every day! That's why, because we all have bitter roots within us, roots that are not always good and sometimes they extend outward and do harm.
That's why, when we talk about God as our Father, while we think of the image of our parents, especially if they loved us, at the same time we have to go further. Because the love of God is that of the Father who is in heaven, according to the expression that Jesus invites us to use: it is the total love that we can taste only imperfectly in this life. Men and women are eternally beggars in search of love, - we are beggars for love, we need love - we look for a place to finally be loved, but we do not find it. How many friendships and how many disappointed loves there are in our world; many!
In mythology, he Greek god of love is the most tragic of all it is not clear whether he is an angelic being or a demon. Mythology says that he is the son of Poros and of Penía, that is of cunning and of poverty, destined to bring in himself some of the physiognomy of these parents. From here we can think of the ambivalent nature of human love: capable of flowering and of overbearing life in one hour of the day, and immediately afterwards withering and dying; the one that seizes it, always escapes it (cf Plato, Symposium, 203). There is an expression of the prophet Hosea that ruthlessly frames the congenital weakness of our love: Your love is like a cloud of the morning, like the dew that fades at dawn (Hosea 6:4). Here is what our love is often: a promise that struggles to keep, an attempt that soon dries up and evaporates, a bit like when the sun comes out in the morning and takes away the night dew.
How many times we human beings have loved in such a weak and intermittent manner. We all have known the experience: we loved but then that love fell or became weak. Desiring to love, we then clashed with our limits, with the poverty of our forces: unable to keep a promise that in the days of grace it seemed easy to achieve. After all, even the apostle Peter was afraid and had to flee. The apostle Peter was not faithful to the love of Jesus. There is always this weakness that makes us fall. We are beggars who, along the path, are likely to never completely find the treasure we seek from the first day of our lives: love.
However, there is another love, that of the Father who is in heaven. No one should doubt that he is the recipient of this love. He loves us. He loves me, we can say. If even our father and mother had not loved us - a historical hypothesis -, there is a God in heaven who loves us as no one on earth has ever loved us and can ever love us. God's love is constant. The prophet Isaiah says: Even if a woman may forget her child, so as not to be moved by the son of her womb ... even if these forget, I will never forget you. Behold, on the palms of my hands I have drawn you (Is 49:15-16). Today tattoos is in fashion: I have drawn you on the palms of my hands. I made a tattoo of you on my hands. I am in God's hands, and I can not take it away. The love of God is like the love of a mother, which can never be forgotten. What if a mother forgets? I will not forget, says the Lord. This is the perfect love of God, so we are loved by Him. Even if all our earthly loves should crumble and do not remain in our hands anything but dust, there is always for all of us, the unique and faithful love of God.
In the hunger for love that we all feel, we do not look for something that does not exist: it is instead an invitation to know God who is a father. The conversion of Saint Augustine, for example, has passed through this ridge: the young and brilliant rhetorician simply sought among the creatures something that no creature could give him, until one day he had the courage to look up. And on that day he knew God. God who loves.
The expression in the skies does not seek to express a distance, but a radical diversity of love, another dimension of love, a tireless love, a love that will always remain, indeed, that is always within reach. Just say, Our Father who art in Heaven, and that love comes.
Therefore, do not be afraid! None of us is alone. If even for misfortune your earthly father had forgotten you and you were in resentment with him, you are not denied the fundamental experience of the Christian faith: that of knowing that you are a beloved child of God, and that there is nothing in life that can extinguish his passionate love for you.
The Holy Father's catechesis was then summarized and His Holiness offered greetings to each group of the faithful in attendance. To English-speaking visitors, he said:
I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, especially those from England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada 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!
No comments:
Post a Comment