It "is idolatry to regard beauty – the many beautiful things - without thinking that there will be a sunset." Instead we must always direct our gaze "beyond," to '"our final habit", to the one God who is beyond "the end of all created things".

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - God is "the great eternal beauty", but mankind sometimes falls into the temptation to deify things "from here" or "habits, without thinking that this too will end”, said Pope Francis during mass this morning in Casa Santa Marta, inspired by the "idolatry" highlighted in the readings of the day.

Francis pointed to the first reading (Book of Wisdom 13.1 to 9) and the Psalm (Psalm 19 (18), 2-3.4-5), "The heavens declare the beauty of God," which speak of "the beauty of creation ", but also emphasize "the error" of "those people unable to look beyond these beautiful things transcendence".  He said this attitude is “the idolatry of immanence". Stopping short at beauty "without going beyond".  "We are attached to this idolatry; they are awestruck by the power and energy. They failed to realize that their sovereign is above all of this, because He is the One who is the source and author of all beauty. It is idolatry to look at beauty – the many beautiful things - without thinking that there will be a sunset. Even the sun has its own beauty ... And we are all in danger of this idolatry of being attached to the beauties of here, without transcendence.  This is the idolatry of immanence. We believe that things as they are, are almost deities, they will never end. We forget the sun will set".

The other idolatry, "is that of habits", of which speaks of Jesus (Luke 17.26 to 37), when he describes the life of men and women in the days of Noah or that of Sodom: "eating, drinking, taking a wife, taking a husband" without bothering with one another, until the time of the flood, or rains, or fire. "Everything is normal. Life is like this: we live well, without thinking that the sun too will set on this way of life. This is also an idolatry being too attached to habits, without thinking that this too will end. And the Church makes us look to the end of these things. Can habits really be considered idolatry? This is how life is, it carries on like this... And just as the beauty will end up in another beauty, habits too will our end in eternity, in another habit. But there is God!".

Instead we must always direct our gaze "beyond", to our “final habit ", the one God who is beyond "the end of created things", as the Church teaches these us in days that conclude the liturgical year, to not repeat the fatal mistake of looking over our shoulder, as happened to Lot's wife, with the certainty that if "life is beautiful, even the sun set will be just as beautiful."

"We - believers - are not people who go back, surrendering, but a people who go ever forward". “Always go forward in this life, looking at the beauty and with the habits that we all of us have, but without deifying them. They will end ... Let these little beauties, reflecting the great beauty, our habits survive in song forever, in the contemplation of the glory of God".

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