2014-01-07 15:30:32

Necessary to ‘discern the spirits’: Pope Francis


Vatican City, 7 January 2014: The Christian needs to monitor his heart to distinguish what comes from God and what comes from false prophets, said Pope Francis on Tuesday morning during Mass at Casa Santa Marta, in the Vatican. In his first Mass after the holiday season, the Pontiff reiterated that the way of Jesus is that of service and humility - the way that all Christians are called to follow.

Pope Francis has woven his homily around the exhortation of the Apostle John "Abide in the Lord." It is a “counsel for life,” the Pope said, that John repeats “almost obsessively.” The Apostle shows “one of the attitudes of the Christian who wants to remain in the Lord: to understand what’s happening in one’s own heart.” For this reason he warns us, “Do not to trust every spirit, but test the spirits.” It is necessary, the Pope said, to know “the discernment of spirits,” to discern whether something helps us “remain in the Lord or takes us away from Him.” “Our heart,” he added, “always has desires, has cravings, has thoughts.” But “are these from the Lord or do some of these things take us away from the Lord?” That’s why the Apostle John exhorts us to “test” what we think and desire:
“If this goes along the line of the Lord, it will go well, but if not… Test the spirits to see if they really come from God, because many false prophets have come into the world. Prophets or prophecies or suggestions: ‘I want to do this!’ But this does not bring you to the Lord, it leads you away from Him. That’s why vigilance is necessary. The Christian is a man or a woman who knows to keep watch over his or her heart. And many times our heart, and with so many things that come and go, seems a local market: everything, you can find everything there… No! We need to test things - this is from the Lord, and this is not – in order to remain in the Lord.”
What, then, is the criterion to determine if something comes from Christ or from the antichrist? St. John, the Pope said, has a clear “simple” idea: “Every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.” But what does it mean, “to recognize that the Word is come in the flesh?” It means “recognizing the path of Jesus Christ,” recognizing the He, “being God, He emptied Himself, He humbled Himself” even to “death on the Cross”.

If a thought or desire of yours takes you on the road of humility and abasement, of service to others, then it comes from the spirit of Jesus, said the Pope, adding but if it lead you to the door of vanity, pride, on the way to abstract thinking, it is not that of Jesus. Temptations of Jesus in the wilderness, all the three, are to move away from the path of service, humility and charity.

The Pope then invited everyone to think about what happens in our own heart. What we think and feel, and what we want to explore the spirits. Pope Francis concluded his reflection invoking the intercession of Apostle John to grant the grace to know what's going on in our hearts and have the wisdom to discern what is of God and what is not of God.Source: VR Sedoc








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