Monday, June 16, 2014

ANGELUS: IT IS CONTRADICTORY TO IMAGINE CHRISTIANS WHO HATE EACH OTHER


Vatican City, 15 June 2014 (VIS) – At midday sharp today, as on every Sunday, the Pope appeared at the window of his study in the Vatican Apostolic Palace to pray the Angelus with the thousands of faithful and pilgrims who awaited him in St. Peter's Square. Before the prayer, Francis spoke briefly about the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, “profound communion and perfect love”, the origin and objective of all creation. He said, “in the Trinity we also recognise the model of the Church, in which we are called upon to love each other as Jesus loved us. Love is the concrete sign that manifests faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Love is the distinctive feature of the Christian, as Jesus told us: 'By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another'. It is a contradiction to think of Christians who hate each other. It is a contradiction! And the devil seeks precisely this: to make us hate each other, because he sows the discord of hate: he does not know love, the love that is God's!”.

He continued, “We are all called upon to bear witness to and to proclaim the message that 'God is love', that God is not distant from us or insensible to our human affairs. He is close to us, He is always by our side, He walks with us to share our joys and our pains, our hope and our strife. He loves us so much, to the point of making Himself man; He came into the world not to guide us but so that the world might be saved through Jesus. And this is God's love in Jesus, this love that is so difficult to understand but which we feel when we draw close to Jesus. And He always forgives us, He always awaits us, He loves us very much. And the love of Jesus that we feel is God's love”.

He added, “the Holy Spirit communicates the divine life to us and therefore allows us to enter into the dynamism of the Trinity, which is a dynamism of love, of communion, of mutual service, of sharing. A person who loves others for the very joy of loving is a reflection of the Trinity. A family in which the members love and help each other is a reflection of the Trinity. A parish in which the members care for each other and share their spiritual and material assets is a reflection of the Trinity. True love is without limits but knows how to limit itself, in order to move towards the other, to respect the freedom of the other. Every Sunday we go to Mass, we celebrate the Eucharist together and the Eucharist is like the 'burning bush' in which the Trinity humbly resides and communicates”. He explained that it is for this reason that the Church has placed the Feast of Corpus Domini after the Feast of the Trinity. Next Thursday, in accordance with a Roman tradition, Holy Mass will be celebrated at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, followed by a procession with the Holy Sacrament. The Pope invited Romans and pilgrims to participate to “express our wish to be a people united in the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I will see you all on Thursday, at 7 p.m., for the procession of Corpus Domini”.


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