Vatican City, 25 January 2015 (VIS) –
At midday today the Pope appeared at the window of his study to pray
the Sunday Angelus with the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square
and commented on today's Gospel reading, which relates the beginning
of Jesus' preaching immediately after the arrest of St. John the
Baptist.
“Jesus' announcement is similar to
that of John, with the significant difference that Jesus does not
indicate that another is to come: Jesus Himself is the fulfilment of
the promise; He is the 'good news' to believe in, to receive and to
communicate to men and women of all time, so that they too entrust
their existence to Him. Jesus Christ Himself is the living Word and
He is active in history: he who listens to and follows Him will enter
the Kingdom of God”.
“Jesus is the fulfilment of the
divine promise because it is He who gives mankind the Holy Spirit,
the 'living water' that quenches the thirst of our restless heart for
life, love, freedom, peace: our thirst for God”, explained Francis.
Jesus' words to the Samaritan woman, 'Give me to drink', were the
theme of this year's annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which
concludes this afternoon with the second Vespers in the Roman
Basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls “to pray fervently to the
Lord, so that He might strengthen our commitment to the full unity of
all Christians”. He added, “it is an ugly thing, that Christians
are divided. But Jesus wants us to be united: one body. Our sins and
our history have divided us and we must therefore pray for the Spirit
to unite us once more”.
“God, who made Himself man, had our
thirst, not only for water, but above all the thirst for a full life,
free from the slavery of evil and death. At the same time, with His
incarnation God placed His thirst, because God also thirsts, in the
heart of a man: Jesus of Nazareth. God thirsts for us, our hearts,
our love, and placed this thirst in Jesus' heart. Therefore, in the
heart of Christ, human and divine thirst meets. And the desire for
the unity of his disciples belongs to this thirst”.
“May Jesus' thirst increasingly
become our own”, he concluded. “Let us therefore continue to pray
and strive for the full unity of the Disciples of Christ, in the
certainty that He Himself is at our side and sustains us with the
strength of His Spirit so that this goal can be reached”.
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