SANTA MARTHA MASS: PATH OF FAITH DOES NOT ALIENATE

Vatican City, 26 April 2013 (VIS) – The journey of faith is not alienating, it is a preparation for arriving at our final destiny. These were the Pope's words during today's homily of the Mass he celebrated this morning at the Domus Sanctae Marthae. In attendance were employees of the Vatican Typography, the labour office of the Apostolic See (ULSA), and members of Corps of the Gendarmerie.

Pope Francis commented on Jesus' words to his disciples in today's Gospel: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” “Jesus' words are truly beautiful. At the moment of his farewell, Jesus speaks to his disciples, but from the heart. He knows that his disciples are sad … and He begins to speak of what? About heaven, about their final homeland. 'Have faith [in God] and also in me? … Using the image of an engineer, of an architect telling them what He is going to do: 'I am going to prepare you a place, in my Father's house there are many dwelling places.' And Jesus goes to prepare a place for us.”

Preparing a place means “preparing our possibility to enjoy, … our possibility to see, to fell, to understand the beauty of what awaits us, of that homeland towards which we walk. All of Christian life is Jesus' labour, the Holy Spirit's, to prepare us a place, to prepare our eyes to be able to see … our hearing to be able to hear the beautiful things, the beautiful words. Above all, to prepare our hearts … to love, to love more.”

Along our lives' path, the pontiff repeated, the Lord prepares our hearts “with trials, with consolations, with tribulations, with good things. The entire journey of our lives is a path of preparation. Sometimes the Lord has to do it quickly, like He did with the Good Thief. There were just a few minutes to prepare him and He did it. But it generally happens that way in our lives, doesn't it? Letting him prepare our hearts, our eyes, our hearing to arrive at this homeland. Because that is our homeland.”

But some would say “that all these thoughts are an alienation, that we are alienated, that this is life, the concrete, and beyond it you don't know what might be. … But Jesus tells us that it is not thus. He tells us: 'Have faith in me as well.' What I am telling you is the truth: I am not tricking you; I am not deceiving you.”

“Preparing oneself for heaven,” the Bishop of Rome finished, “is beginning to greet him from afar. This is not an alienation. This is the truth. This is letting Jesus prepare our hearts, our eyes, for that great beauty. It is the path of beauty, the path of our return to the homeland. May God grant us the hope, courage, and humility to let the Lord prepare us a place!”