Here and Now with Francis 7/1/16 (Christ, mercy, lifestyle, poverty, hypocrisy, Christianity)
What does it mean to look at the essential? To look at Jesus, to look at Jesus in the hungry, the imprisoned, the sick, the naked, in the one who has no work and must lead his family forward. To look at Jesus in these brothers and sisters of ours; to look at Jesus in one who is alone, sad, in one who errs and is in need of counsel, in one who needs to walk with Him in silence, to feel he is in company.
From the audience
Mercy is not an abstract word, but a style of life: a person can be merciful or not merciful; it’s a style of life. I choose to be merciful or I choose not to be merciful. It is one thing to speak of mercy and another to live mercy. ... Requested of us is that particular attention that leads us to be aware of the state of suffering and need in which so many brothers and sisters are. Sometimes we pass before dramatic situations of poverty and it seems that they do not touch us; everything continues as if there were nothing, in an indifference that in the end renders us hypocrites and, without realizing it, it results in a form of spiritual lethargy, which renders our mind insensitive and our life sterile. People that pass by, who go forward in life without being aware of the needs of others, without seeing the many spiritual and material needs, are people that pass by without living, people that do not serve others. ... Because of the changes of our globalized world, some material and spiritual poverties have multiplied: hence let us make room for the imagination of charity to identify new operative ways. Thus the way of mercy will become ever more concrete. Requested of us, therefore, is to remain vigilant as watchmen, so that it will not happen that, in face of the poverties produced by the culture of wellbeing, the eyes of Christians are weakened and become incapable of looking at the essential. [full text]
