miniZibaldone

Let us ask the Lord to look to the large and to the small follies of our hearts with the same tenderness, to caress us gently and to say to us: ‘Oh you foolish and  slow of heart’ and begin to explain things to us. From the homily Pope Francis said: "It hurts when I read that small passage from the Gospel of Matthew, when Judas, who has repented, goes to the priests and says: ‘I have sinned'  and wants to give ... and gives them the coins. ‘Who cares! - they say to him: it’s none of our business!’ They closed their hearts before this poor, repentant man,  who did not know what to do. And he went and hanged himself. And what did they do when Judas hanged himself? They spoke amongst themselves and said: 'Is he a poor  man? No! These coins are the price of blood, they must not enter the temple... and they referred to this rule and to that… The doctors of the letter. " The life of a person did not matter to them, the Pope observed, they did not care about Judas’ re...

He wants that our freedom is converted from evil to good, and this is possible – you can! – with His grace. From the Angelus Only the woman and Jesus remained there: misery and mercy, facing each other. And this, as often happens to us when we stop in front of the confessional, with shame,  to make seen our misery and ask forgiveness! “Woman, where are they?” (V. 10), Jesus says to her. And just this fact, and His eyes full of mercy, full of love, to  make that person feel – perhaps for the first time – that she has a dignity, that she is not her sin, but has the dignity of a person; that she can change her life,  can exit from her bondage and walk in a new way.  Dear brothers and sisters, this woman represents all of us, that we are sinners, adulterers before God, traitors of His loyalty. And her experience is God’s will for  each of us: not our condemnation, but our salvation through Jesus.   [full text]

From the homily “Today I want to emphasize only one thing,” the Pope concluded. “There is a moment where the attitude of sin, or a moment where our situation is so secure and we see well and we have so much power” that sin “stops” and becomes “corruption.” And “one of the ugliest things” about corruption is that the one who becomes corrupt thinks he has “no need for forgiveness.” [...]  “Today, let us offer a prayer for the Church, beginning with ourselves, for the Pope, for the Bishops, for the priests, for consecrated men and women, for the lay faithful: ‘Lord, save us, save us from corruption. We are sinners, yes, O Lord, all of us, but [let us] never [become] corrupt!’ Let us ask for this grace.”   [link] From the address Therefore, mercy constitutes the architrave that supports the life of the Church: the first truth of the Church, in fact, is the love of Christ. [...]  This attention to the works of mercy is important: they are not a devotion. It is the concr...