Pope: "May Holy Week will help us leave behind the temptation to be ‘Yes, but Christians...'"
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "May this Holy Week, which will begin Sunday, help us to leave behind this temptation to become ‘Yes, but Christians...'", to not have "spiritual whims" before God, Who offers salvation in thousands of ways. May it help us to recognize "the divine style" so we do not “grumble", said Pope Francis during Mass celebrated this morning at Casa Santa Marta, taking a cue from the biblical episode in which the Jews rebel against the hardships of their flight into the desert, to the "light" food of the manna, and begin to "speak ill of God "and many of them end up bitten and killed by poisonous snakes.
Only Moses’ prayer who intercedes for them and raises a stick with a snake - the symbol of the Cross on which Christ will be hung - will become salvation from the poison for those who gaze upon it. "We, too, among us Christians, how many of us find ourselves a little poisoned by our dissatisfaction with life. Yes, indeed, God is good, Christians, yes but,... Christians, yes, but ... Who do not stop to open our hearts to God's salvation, always demanding conditions. 'Yes, but like this!'. 'Yes, yes, yes, I want to be saved, but this way' ... Thus the heart becomes poisoned. "
We too "often say that we loathe the divine style. We do not accept the gift of God on his terms: That is a sin, that is a poison. It poisons the soul, takes away our joy, never lets go of you. And Jesus solves this sin on Calvary. "He himself takes upon himself the poison, sin and is raised up. This luke-warmth of the soul, that to be a a half-hearted Christian, 'Christians, yes, but ...'. This enthusiasm at the outset on the journey with the Lord and then becoming disgruntled, only heals gazing at the Cross, gazing at God who takes on our sins: my sin is there".
How many Christians - said Francis - Today "die in the desert of their sadness, their grumbling, their not wanting God’s terms". "We look at the snake, the venom, there, in the body of Christ, the poison of all the sins of the world and ask for the grace to accept difficult moments. To accept the style of divine salvation, to accept even this miserable food of which the Jews complained, to accept the things ... To accept the ways by which the Lord leads us forward. May this Holy Week, which will begin Sunday, help us to leave behind this temptation to become 'Yes but Christians'".
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