(03 Mar 10 - RV) An invitation to conversion was at the heart of Pope Benedict's Sunday
Angelus in St Peter's Square.
At midday
today, following his morning visit to the Roman parish of St. John of the Cross, the
Holy Father appeared at the window of his study in order to pray the Angelus with
faithful gathered below in St. Peter's Square. Commenting on the first reading
from today's liturgy - the narrative of Moses and the burning bush which was not consumed
by the flames but continued to burn, and whence God called to Moses - the Pope explained
how "God shows Himself in various ways, also in our own lives. However, in order to
recognise His presence it is necessary for us to approach Him with an awareness of
our own lowliness and with profound respect. Otherwise we would be incapable of meeting
and entering into communion with Him". He then went on to comment on the day's
Gospel reading in which Jesus is asked about certain tragic events: the murder in
the Temple of certain Galileans by order of Pilate, and the collapse of a tower that
killed several passers-by. "Against the facile conclusion of considering evil as the
effect of a divine punishment", said Benedict XVI, "Jesus proclaims the innocence
of God, Who is good and cannot wish evil, and He warns against thinking that calamities
are the immediate consequence of the personal guilt of those who suffer them". Jesus
replies to His questioners saying: "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered
in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but
unless you repent, you will all perish as they did". Christ, the Pope explained, "is
inviting us to read those events differently, to see them in the perspective of conversion:
calamities and tragic events must not arouse our curiosity or our desire to find the
supposedly guilty, but should be occasions to reflect, to reject the illusion that
we can live without God and to strengthen, with God's help, our commitment to change
our lives". "The possibility of conversion demands that we learn to read the events
of life in the light of faith. ... In the presence of suffering and tragedy, true
wisdom is to ask ourselves about the precarious nature of existence and to read human
history with the eye of God Who, always wanting only the good of His children for
an inscrutable design of His love, sometimes allows them to be tried by pain in order
to lead them to a greater good". After praying the Angelus the Pope greeted, among
others, a group of French pilgrims making particular mention of the people affected
by the storm that struck western France last week.