Pope: Commandments are an ‘X-ray’ of Christ and renew our hearts
In Jesus the Commandments are no longer a series of negative prescriptions, "but the very flesh of Christ, who loves us, seeks us, forgives us, comforts us and in his Body recomposes communion with the Father, lost because of the disobedience of sin".
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - For Christians the Commandments are a " contemplation of Christ to open us to receive his heart, his desires, his Holy Spirit". "Desiring according to the Spirit" is what indicates the transformation of the Commandments made by Jesus, who came not to abolish, but to complete the law. The "desire according to the Spirit" is the key to reading given by Pope Francis at the conclusion of the catechesis on the Commandments at today's general audience.
A meeting cheerfully "disturbed" by an Argentine child who greeted the Pope and then remained for a long time on the great stage of the Paul VI Hall, running around him. "This child - Francis said with a smile in Spanish - is silent, he cannot speak, but he can communicate and is free, truly free".
To the eight thousand people present, the Pope had previously explained that "in today's catechesis, which concludes the path on the Ten Commandments, we can use as key theme that of desires, which allows us to retrace the journey made and summarize the steps taken reading the text of the Commandments, always in the light of full revelation in Christ ".
"We started out with gratitude as the basis of the relationship of trust and obedience: God, we have seen, does not ask for anything before He has given much more. He invites us to obedience to redeem ourselves from the deception of idolatries that have so much power over us. In fact, to seek one's own fulfillment in the idols of this world empties us and enslaves us, while what gives us stature and consistency is the relationship with Him who, in Christ, makes us children through His fatherhood (cf. Eph 3,14- 16). This implies a process of blessing and liberation, which is authentic repose. As the Psalm says: "Only in God does my soul repose: in Him my salvation" (Ps 62: 2) ".
"This liberated life becomes the acceptance of our personal history and reconciles us with what, from infancy to the present, we have lived, making us adults and capable of giving the right weight to the realities and people of our lives. On this path we enter into the relationship with our neighbor who, starting from the love that God shows in Jesus Christ, is a call to the beauty of fidelity, generosity and authenticity. But in order to live like this we need a new heart, uninhabited by the Holy Spirit (cf. Ez 11,19; 36,26). How is this 'transplant' of heart? Through the gift of new desires (cf. Rom 8: 6), which are sown in us by the grace of God, especially through the Ten Commandments brought to fulfillment by Jesus, as He teaches in the 'discourse of the mountain' (cf. , 17-48). In fact, in contemplating the life described in the Ten Commandments, that is a grateful, free, authentic, of blessing, mature life, guardian and lover of life, faithful, generous and sincere, we, almost without realizing it, find ourselves before Christ. The Commandments are his 'X-ray', he describes it as a photographic negative that lets his face appear - as in the Holy Shroud. And so the Holy Spirit enriches our heart by sowing the desires that are His gift in it, the desires of the Spirit. To desire according to the Spirit, to the rhythm of the Spirit ".
"Looking at Christ we see beauty, goodness and truth. And the Spirit generates a life which, following these desires, triggers hope, faith and love in us. Thus we discover better what it means that the Lord Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill, and while the law according to the flesh was a series of prescriptions and prohibitions, according to the Spirit this same law becomes life (cf. Jn 6, 63, Eph 2:15), because it is no longer a norm but the very flesh of Christ, who loves us, seeks us, forgives us, comforts us and in his Body recomposes communion with the Father, lost for the disobedience of sin . And so the negativity in the expression of the Commandments: not to steal, not to kill, is transformed into a positive attitude ".
"In Christ, and only in him, the Decalogue stops being a condemnation (cf. Rom 8: 1) and becomes the authentic truth of human life, that is, desire for love, joy, peace, magnanimity, benevolence, goodness, loyalty, meekness, self-control. From no we pass to yes, positive attitude by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what it is necessary to look for Christ in the Commandments: to enrich our heart so that it may be full of love, and open itself to the work of God. When man favors the desire to live according to Christ, then he is opening the door to salvation, which he can only reach, because God the Father is generous and, as the Catechism says, "He thirst for us to thirst for Him" (No. 2560). "" If it is the evil desires that ruin man (cf. Mt 15: 18-20), the Spirit lays down in his heart his holy desires, which are the seed of new life (cf. 1 Jn 3,9). In fact, the new life is not the titanic effort to be consistent with a norm, but the Spirit of God who begins to guide us to its fruits, in a happy synergy between our joy of being loved and His joy of loving us. We meet the two joys". "Here is the Commandment for us Christians: to contemplate Christ to open ourselves to receive his heart, his desires, his Holy Spirit." In the greetings to thePoles, finally, Francis recalled the Polish family Ulma, "shot by the Nazis Germans during World War II, for hiding and helping Jews. In the context of the meditations on the Decalogue, this large Family of Servants of God, awaiting beatification, is an example to all of us to be faithful to God and to His commandments, love of neighbor and respect for human dignity ".
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11/08/2017 20:05
