God’s forgiveness is call to sin no more, pope says

752 0

By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — God forgives and forgets the faults of repentant sinners, unless they keep reminding him of their errors by pretending they have no need to change, Pope Francis said.

The new covenant in Jesus Christ, the new relationship God wants to establish with each person, is sealed by being “faithful to this work the Lord does to change our mentality, to change our hearts,” the pope said Jan. 20 during his morning Mass.

Being a Christian, he said, is making a commitment to changing one’s life by “not sinning again or reminding the Lord of that which he has forgotten.”

The pope preached on the day’s reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, which says God will write his laws on the hearts of believers, “will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more.”

“Sometimes I like to think — joking with the Lord a bit — ‘You don’t have a very good memory.’ It is God’s weakness that when he forgives, he forgets,” the pope said.

By writing his laws on people’s hearts, he said, God wants to renew creation at its roots. Obedience, then, is not an external matter of following rules, but “there is a change of mentality, a change of heart,” a different way of acting and of seeing things.

“Think about the ‘doctors of the law’ who persecuted Jesus,” he said. “They did everything, everything prescribed by the law, they had the law in their hands, all of it. But their mentality was far from God. It was a selfish mentality, centered on themselves. Their hearts were hearts that condemned.”

In forgiving rather than condemning, the pope said, God’s call to believers is a call to sin no more and to change one’s life.

Related Post

The CloudMinds XR-1 robot performs for visitors at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain Feb. 25, 2019. Technology holds the potential to benefit all of humankind, but it also poses risky and unforeseen results, Pope Francis said. (CNS photo/Rafael Marchante, Reuters)

Pope: Humanity can be dangerously spellbound by hi-tech progress

Posted by - March 2, 2019 0
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Technology holds the potential to benefit all of humankind, but it also poses risky and unforeseen…
Hailey McConnell is enamored with Lothair at Langley Air Force Base, adjacent to Hampton and Newport News, Va., Feb. 13, 2019. The girl was with her mother, Melissa, waiting for her brother Caleb's pediatric appointment. Melanie Paul, right, brings her Shetland Sheepdogs, Lothair and Locksley, to the hospital once a week to provide animal-assisted therapy to inpatients and outpatients. (CNS photo/Jennifer Neville, The Catholic Virginian)

Catholic’s deafness no obstacle to practicing a corporal work of mercy

Posted by - March 9, 2019 0
HAMPTON, Va. (CNS) — “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Those words from Chapter 4 of…
A crucifix is seen in Pontchateau, France, Aug. 24. Pope Francis said in his homily at Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae Oct. 24 that one must truly enter into the mystery of Jesus Christ's precious gift of "loving me" so much, "he gave himself" and was crucified and died for everyone's sins. (CNS photo/Stephane Mahe, Reuters)

Only Jesus, in his infinite mercy, would die for sinners, pope says

Posted by - October 28, 2017 0
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Going to Mass regularly, praying and doing good works are not enough to make a person…