Pope: today there are Christians 'in prison, slaughtered and hanged because they proclaim Jesus'
Witness, together with obedience and realism, were demonstrated by the apostles after the Resurrection. "Sins, compromises, fear make us forget" our first encounter with Jesus, the encounter that changed our life. "We carry a memory, but a watered down memory; it makes us become Christians but ‘rose water’ Christians.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - There are more Christians persecuted today than in the first centuries: "in prison, slaughtered and hanged because they proclaim Jesus'", Pope Francis once again recalled at Mass this morning at Casa Santa Marta, speaking of obedience, witness, realism demonstrated by the apostles after Easter.
The 50 days of Easter time, highlighted Francis, were for the apostles a "time of joy" for the Resurrection. A true joy but still doubtful, fearful, wondering how things would turn out, while later, with the descent of the Holy Spirit, this joy becomes "courageous": first "they understood why they saw the Lord, but they did not understand everything", they were happy but they could not understand. "It was the Holy Spirit who made them understand everything".
The Pope recalled that the apostles had been forbidden to preach, to announce Jesus and yet, after their release from prison by an angel, they return to teach in the temple. As narrated in the First Reading today taken from Acts (Acts 5: 27-33), they are brought before the Sanhedrin where the high priest reminds them they were forbidden from teaching in the name of Jesus. "We must obey God instead of men" : is Peter's answer. The word "obedience" returns, then, also in today's Gospel (Jn 3: 31-36). And the Pope underlined it because "a life of obedience" is what characterizes the apostles who received the Holy Spirit. Obedience to follow the path of Jesus who "obeyed to the end" as in the Garden of Olives. Obedience consists in doing the will of God. Obedience is the path that the Son "has opened to us", says Francis, and the Christian therefore "obeys God".
The priests, instead, who wanted to command, settled everything with a bribe: "a bribe that led to the Sepulchre". This is how the world solves things, that is, "with worldly things". The first is "money", whose lord is the devil. In fact, Jesus himself says that two masters cannot be served.
The second characteristic of the apostles is "witness". And "Christian witness annoys". Pope Francis went on to explain that sometimes we may seek to compromise "between the world and us", but "Christian witness does not know the ways of compromise". "It knows the patience needed to accompany people who do not share our way of thinking, our faith, to tolerate, to accompany, but never to sell out the truth". "First, obedience, and second, witness, which is such a nuisance to some. There have been so many persecutions since that time. Think about Christians persecuted in Africa and the Middle East. There are more today than in early Christianity: people in prison, killed, and hanged all to witness to Jesus. They are witnesses to the end ".
The realism of the apostles is, then, the third aspect on which the Pope dwelled: they spoke of concrete things, "not of" fairy tales ". Therefore, as the apostles saw and touched, "each of us touched Jesus in our own life". " “It often happens that sins, compromises, or fears make us forget this first encounter, the one that changed our lives. We carry a memory with us that gets watered down to make us ‘rose-water’ Christians: watered-down and superficial. We must ask for the grace of the Holy Spirit of realism. Jesus has entered into my life and my heart. So has the Holy Spirit. I may have forgotten it, but the grace of the first encounter lives on in me".
So, it is time to ask for Easter joy. “Let us pray for it for one another: the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit: the joy of Easter obedience, the joy of Easter witness, and the joy of Easter realism".
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19/04/2018 12:59
