Pope at Mass with Italian MPs speaks of blindness of leaders towards God
Vatican City: March 27, 2014: ‘Blindness’ towards God especially on the part of the
leaders of the people of Jesus’ time, was the focus of Pope Francis’ homily at Mass
he celebrated Thursday morning in St. Peter's Basilica with 493 Italian parliamentarians,
slightly more than half of the members of both Houses.
"At the time of Jesus,"
the Pope said, "there was a ruling class that had moved away from the people, that
had 'abandoned' the people, incapable of doing anything else except follow their own
ideology and slide towards corruption." The Pope observed how in the first reading
from the Book of Jeremiah, the prophet gives voice to the "lament of God" for a generation
that did not accept his messengers and instead justified its sins. "They have turned
their backs to me" quoted Pope Francis. "This is the Lord's pain, the pain of God".
This reality, he says, is also present in today's Gospel, that of a blindness towards
God especially on the part of the leaders of the people. "The heart of this people,
this little group hardened over time, so much so that it was impossible to hear the
voice of the Lord. As sinners, they slipped, they became corrupt. It is very difficult
for the corrupt to turn back. The sinner, yes, because the Lord is merciful and awaits
us all. But the corrupt is set in his ways, and these were corrupt. This is why they
justified themselves, because Jesus, with his simplicity, but with the strength of
God, annoyed them".
“People”, says Pope Francis, “who took the wrong road;
they resisted the Lord's loving salvation, and so slipped from the faith, a theology
of faith into a theology of duty. They rejected the Lord's love and this rejection
resulted in them taking a road that was not the road of dialectic of freedom offered
by the Lord, but that of the logic of necessity, where there is no place for the Lord.
The good Lord who loves us, is in the dialectic of freedom, He loves us so much! Instead,
there is no place for God in the logic of necessity: it must be done, must be done,
it must be ... They have become behavioral. Men of good manners, but of bad habits.
Jesus calls them, 'whitewashed tombs’.”
“Lent”, Pope Francis concluded “reminds
us that God loves us all and that we must make the effort to open up to him. On this
Lenten journey we would do well, all of us, to think about this call of the Lord to
love, this dialectic of freedom where there is love, and all of us ask ourselves:
'Am I on this road? Am I in danger of justifying myself and taking another road?'.
It is a road that leads to nowhere, because it does not lead to any promise ... Let
us pray that the Lord give us the grace to always choose the road of salvation, to
open ourselves to the salvation that only comes from God, by faith, not by what these
'doctors of duty' proposed, those who had lost faith and led the people with this
theology of pastoral duty".