VATICAN CITY, 14 MAR 2010 (VIS) - At midday today, Benedict XVI appeared at the window of his study to pray the Angelus with faithful gathered below in St. Peter's Square.
Before the Marian prayer the Holy Father reflected on today's Gospel reading, saying that St. Luke's narrative "represents an all-time literary and spiritual high point.
"What indeed would our culture, our art and, more generally, our civilisation be without this revelation of a Father God full of mercy?" he added. "Once Jesus told us of the merciful Father, things were not as they were before: now we know God. ... Our relations with Him are constructed over the course of time, just as happens with a child and his parents. At first he is dependent on them, then he claims his own autonomy and finally - if there is a positive development - the relationship matures, based on recognition and authentic love".
The Pope went on to point out that these stages in human relations reflect the various moments in a human being's relationship with God, which "may also have a phase similar to infancy: a religion inspired by need and dependency". Then, as a person grows, "he wishes to free himself from this submission" and "to become capable of looking after himself, of making his own independent choices, sometimes thinking he can do without God".
This delicate phase, noted the Holy Father, "can lead to atheism, but that too, not infrequently, conceals a need to discover the true face of God. Luckily for us, God never fails in His faithfulness and, even if we move away and become lost, He continues to follow us with His love, forgiving our errors and speaking to our conscience in order to call us back to Him".
"Only by experiencing forgiveness, by recognising that we are loved with a gratuitous love that is greater than our own abjection, and than our justice, do we finally enter into a truly filial and free relationship with God", Benedict XVI concluded.
ANG/DIVINE MERCY/... VIS 20100315 (350)
Before the Marian prayer the Holy Father reflected on today's Gospel reading, saying that St. Luke's narrative "represents an all-time literary and spiritual high point.
"What indeed would our culture, our art and, more generally, our civilisation be without this revelation of a Father God full of mercy?" he added. "Once Jesus told us of the merciful Father, things were not as they were before: now we know God. ... Our relations with Him are constructed over the course of time, just as happens with a child and his parents. At first he is dependent on them, then he claims his own autonomy and finally - if there is a positive development - the relationship matures, based on recognition and authentic love".
The Pope went on to point out that these stages in human relations reflect the various moments in a human being's relationship with God, which "may also have a phase similar to infancy: a religion inspired by need and dependency". Then, as a person grows, "he wishes to free himself from this submission" and "to become capable of looking after himself, of making his own independent choices, sometimes thinking he can do without God".
This delicate phase, noted the Holy Father, "can lead to atheism, but that too, not infrequently, conceals a need to discover the true face of God. Luckily for us, God never fails in His faithfulness and, even if we move away and become lost, He continues to follow us with His love, forgiving our errors and speaking to our conscience in order to call us back to Him".
"Only by experiencing forgiveness, by recognising that we are loved with a gratuitous love that is greater than our own abjection, and than our justice, do we finally enter into a truly filial and free relationship with God", Benedict XVI concluded.
ANG/DIVINE MERCY/... VIS 20100315 (350)
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