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Pope: Imitate God by being merciful to others

Posted on March 23, 2019 at March 26, 2019 by admin
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Pope Francis leads the Angelus from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square at the Vatican March 17, 2019. The pope led the crowd in silent prayer for the victims of the attacks on the New Zealand mosques. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The season of Lent is a time for Christians to reflect on and practice the mercy of God toward others and not waste away sitting in judgment of others, Pope Francis said.

Jesus’ command to “be merciful, just as your father is merciful” is a reminder for Christians that God always has shown them mercy even when they were at their worst, the pope said in his homily March 18 during morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

“How many people say, ‘I have done such terrible things. I have earned my place in hell, I can’t turn back.’ But do they think about the mercy of God?” he asked.

Reflecting on the day’s Gospel reading from St. Luke, the pope said Jesus calls on his disciples “to imitate God” by showing mercy, being forgiving and not judging others.

God’s mercy, he said, is a “great thing” that must not be forgotten even in the worst of circumstances. He recalled the story of a grief-stricken woman who told St. John Vianney that her husband was in hell after he committed suicide by jumping off a bridge.

“And (St. John Vianney) said, ‘But wait a moment, ma’am, because between the bridge and the river, there is the mercy of God.’ To the very end, to the very end, there is the mercy of God,” the pope said.

Jesus, he continued, also warns his disciples to not judge others, which is “a habit that gets mixed up in our lives even without us realizing it.”

“Let us think about how many times each day we judge. All of us. But it always begins through a conversation, a comment about someone else: ‘But look, that person had plastic surgery! They’re uglier than before,'” he explained.

Finally, Jesus also calls on Christians to be generous and not have “closed pockets” when giving alms to those in need, the pope said.

While giving material aid to the poor is important, Pope Francis said that Lent is an opportunity for men and women also to be generous in giving “spiritual alms” by spending time with someone in need, visiting the sick or sharing a smile.

“Let us go forward in Lent at least by succeeding in not condemning others in our conversations, in not judging and by forgiving,” the pope said, “so that the Lord may give us this grace, because it is a grace that the Lord will give us if we ask for it and make the effort to go ahead and be generous with others.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Poor people from the Amazon have shown that God's creation must be treated "not as a resource to be exploited but as a home to be preserved, with trust in God," Pope Francis said. He celebrated Mass Oct. 27 to mark the end of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, which brought together bishops, priests and religious, and lay men and women, including indigenous people, from the nine Amazonian countries. Synod participants, some wearing their native dress and feathered headdresses, led the procession into St. Peter's Basilica. During the offertory, an indigenous woman presented the pope with a plant. Their presence was a reminder of the pope's rebuke to a bishop who had made a derogatory comment about an indigenous man wearing his headdress at the synod's opening Mass on Oct. 6. Instead of using a crosier made of precious metals, the pope carried a carved wooden crosier that the Vatican said was a gift from the synod. During the assembly, participants described the environmental devastation and social problems caused by mining in the Amazon. Pope Francis' homily about the Gospel parable of the self-righteous Pharisee and the tax collector drew parallels to the situation in the Amazon. It also appeared to address critics who have called the synod heretical. The Pharisee was "the most pious and devout figure of the time, and the tax collector, the public sinner par excellence," Pope Francis said. But in Jesus' eyes, "the one who is good but presumptuous fails; the one who is a disaster but humble is exalted by God." The Pharisee "stands in the temple of God, but he practices another religion, the religion of 'I,' and many popular groups, Christian and Catholic, follow this path," Pope Francis said. "The drama of this man is that he is without love." In contrast, the tax collector's prayer for mercy "is born from the heart," the pope said. "To pray is to stand before God’s eyes, without illusions, excuses or justifications." Everyone is both Pharisee and tax collector, the pope said. "We are a bit tax collectors because we are sinners, and a bit Pharisees because we are … masters of the art of self-justification." The Pharisee's attitude is apparent in "those who are prominent" considering others to be "backward and of little worth, despise their traditions, erase their history, occupy their lands, and usurp their goods," he added. The pope's words echoed the accounts of indigenous observers at the synod, who described a history of plundering of timber, rubber, minerals and other natural resources in the Amazon. That rapaciousness has displaced people from their land and spurred violence, including human trafficking and the murder of people who try to defend their territories. "In this synod we have had the grace of listening to the voices of the poor and reflecting on the precariousness of their lives," Pope Francis said. The "scarred face of the Amazon region," he said, shows that past experience has not been enough "to stop the plundering of other persons and the inflicting of wounds on our brothers and sisters and on our sister earth." The pope's language throughout the synod has echoed the words of his namesake, St. Francis, who praised God through his brothers, wind and air, and his sister, Mother Earth. Nevertheless, the gathering was sharply criticized by some Catholic groups that claimed it was heretical. The critics, who were active on social media during the synod, also claimed that a carved image of a pregnant indigenous woman that was used during some prayer services was a pagan idol. Pope Francis urged his listeners to reflect on "whether we, too, may think that someone is inferior and can be tossed aside, even if only in our words." "Self-worship carries on hypocritically with its rites and 'prayers,'" the pope said, adding that many people who fall into self-worship "profess to be Catholics, but have forgotten to be Christians and human beings, forgetting the true worship of God, which is always expressed in love of one's neighbor." Calling the poor "the gatekeepers of heaven," he said, "they were not considered bosses in this life. They did not put themselves ahead of others. They had their wealth in God alone. These persons are living icons of Christian prophecy." The pope paused during his homily to acknowledge the presence of "the poorest people of our most developed societies, the sick from the L'Arche Community," who were seated in the front rows in the basilica. He encouraged his listeners to "associate with the poor, to remind ourselves that we are poor, to remind ourselves that the salvation of God operates only in an atmosphere of interior poverty." "Let us pray for the grace to be able to listen to the cry of the poor," Pope Francis said. "This is the cry of hope of the church."

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