Pope's Morning Mass: God Isn't Petty
At Casa Santa Marta, Francis Says That God Won't Measure His Love, Even If Humans Do
Rome, (ZENIT.org) Staff Reporter
This was the theme of the Pope's homily at morning Mass today in the Casa Santa Marta, reported Vatican Radio.
Noting that the word "abundance" is found three times in the reading today from Paul's letter to the Romans, the Holy Father reflected, "God gives in abundance up to the point as Paul wrote in his final summing up: 'But however much sin increased, grace was always greater.' It abounds everything. And this is God’s love for us, without limits. All of Himself.”
Pope Francis went on to explain that God’s heart is always open, like that of the Prodigal Son's father.
“God is not a petty God. He doesn’t know pettiness. He gives everything. God is not somebody who stays still: He is watching and waiting for us to convert. God is a God who goes out. He goes out to search, for each one of us.
"But is this true? Every day he searches, he is searching for us. As he already has done and already said, in the Parable of the lost sheep or the lost coin: He is searching. He is always doing this.”
Recognizing that for human beings, this love is difficult to understand, the Pope shared a recollection of an 84-year-old religious sister that he knew in his home diocese who, he said, still goes out to visit ill people in the hospital and speaks to them with a smile about God’s love. Pope Francis said this sister received the grace to understand the mystery of God’s boundless love, a grace that so many do not receive.
“It’s true, we always tend to weigh up the situation or things with the measurements that we have, and our measurements are small. For this reason, we’d do well to ask the Holy Spirit for this grace. Pray to the Holy Spirit for the grace to draw closer, at least a little bit, in order to understand this love and have the desire to be embraced and kissed with that boundless love.”
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