Pope’s Morning Homily: God’s Love Is Free
During Mass at Santa Marta, Says Don’t Try to Control Salvation
Vatican City, (ZENIT.org) Deborah Castellano Lubov
According to Vatican Radio, Pope Francis stressed this during his daily morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta this morning, urging those gathered to not be fooled by those who want to limit God’s love.
"One of the hardest things for all Christians to understand,” the Pope said, “is the gratuitousness of salvation in Jesus Christ.”
The Holy Father observed that some of us Christians have gotten to used to hearing that Jesus is the Son of God, who came to love, save us and die for us, to the extent that some “prefer not to understand this truth.”
He spoke on how Jesus and St. Paul were criticized for promoting this idea, by those scholars who couldn't understand. St. Paul, the Pope pointed out, met great difficulty in making his people understand that “gratuitousness of salvation” is true doctrine.
Pope Francis noted how this year marks 500th anniversary of the birth of St. Teresa of Avila that we celebrate today, adding she too was judged in her day.
"How many saints," the Holy Father lamented, "have been persecuted for defending love, gratuitousness of salvation, the doctrine. Many saints. We think of Joan of Arc."
The Holy Father reminded those gathered that the Lord has given faithful the grace “to understand the horizons of love" and warned them against those who try to convince us otherwise.
The Pope concluded, posing two questions: “Do I believe that the Lord saved me gratuitously, freely? Do I believe that I have done nothing to merit salvation?”
“Let us ask ourselves these questions,” the Pope urged, adding that, “only in this way will we be faithful to this merciful love: the love of a father and a mother, because God also says He is like a mother with us; love, expanded horizons, without limits. And let us not be fooled by scholars [of the Law] who limit this love.”
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