GENERAL AUDIENCE: GOD CARES FOR HIS PEOPLE IN PERIL

VATICAN CITY, JUN 19, 2002 (VIS) - In today's general audience, celebrated in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope spoke about a canticle from Deuteronomy, "a joyous hymn to the Lord who protects and cares for his people with love amidst the dangers and difficulties of the day."

In the canticle, said the Holy Father, "the Lord is called the Rock... an image that exalts unceasing fidelity and does not disappoint, very different from the instability and infidelity of the people."

In order to urge the faithful to return to fidelity, the Canticle stresses the wonders that God has done for his people, not with an attitude of "implacable sovereign" but with one of a "loving father", affirmed John Paul II.

"Biblical faith," he continued, "is a 'memorial', that is, to rediscover the eternal action of God in the passage of time; it is to make present and effective the salvation that the Lord has given to us and continues to offer to man. The great sin of infidelity coincides with the 'oversight' that erases the memory of the divine presence in us and in history."

The Pope concluded by emphasizing that the Canticle of Moses invites us "to an examination of conscience so that the people of God finally respond to the divine benefits received not with sin but with fidelity."

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