Here and Now with Francis 2/12/16 (Confession, sacrament, mercy, forgiveness, shame, conversion, grace, usury, poverty, charity, Church)
From an address
The Church is Mother because she always generates new children in the faith; the Church is Mother because she nourishes the faith; and the Church is also Mother because she offers God’s forgiveness, regenerating to a new life, fruit of conversion. We cannot run the risk of a penitent not perceiving the maternal presence of the Church, which receives and loves him. [...] This passage makes me say how important our role is in confession. Before us is a “naked” person, and also a person that doesn’t know how to speak and doesn’t know what to say, with his weakness and his limitations, with the shame of being a sinner, and so many times unable to say it. [...] To be a confessor according to the heart of Christ means to cover the sinner with the cover of mercy, so that he is no longer ashamed and is able to regain the joy of his filial dignity, and is also able to know where it is found again. [full text]
If I’m not mistaken … more or less, the numbers aren’t certain, but 80% of the riches of humanity are in the hands of less than 20% of the population. It is a jubilee – and I say this recalling the history of our salvation – to be converted, so that our heart becomes larger, more generous, more a child of God, with more love. I’ll tell you something: if this desire, if the jubilee doesn’t reach pockets, it isn’t a jubilee. Have you understood? And this is in the Bible! This Pope doesn’t invent it: it’s in the Bible. [...] How many families are on the street, victims of usury! Please, let us pray that during this Jubilee the Lord take from all our hearts the desire to have more — usury. That we return to be generous, great. How many situations of usury we are constrained to see and how much suffering and anguish they bring families! And so often, in despair, how many men end in suicide because they can’t make ends meet and have no hope, they don’t have the extended hand to help them; only the hand that comes to make them pay the interest. Usury is a grave sin; it is a sin that cries out to God. [full text]
