God cannot be an object of negotiation. And faith does not envisage the possibility of being "lukewarm", "neither bad nor good", trying with "a double life" to reach a compromise for "a status vivendi" with the world. Pope Francis said this in his homily at Mass, celebrated on the morning of Thursday, 11 April, in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae [...].
In the readings, the Pope explained in his homily, "the word 'obey' appears three times. The first time, when Peter replies "one must obey God instead of men"" before the Sanhedrin, as narrated in the Acts of the Apostles (5:27-33).
What does it mean,' the Pontiff asked himself, 'to obey God? Does this mean that we are to be like slaves, all tied up? No, because the very one who obeys God is free, not a slave! And how do you do this? I obey, I do not do my will and I am free? It sounds like a contradiction. And this is not a contradiction'. In fact, obey comes from the Latin, and means to listen, to hear the other. To obey God is to listen to God, to have an open heart to go on the path that God shows us. Obedience to God is listening to God. And this makes us free'.
Precisely commenting on the passage from the Acts of the Apostles, the Pontiff recalled that Peter "in front of these scribes, priests, even the high priest, the Pharisees", was called to "make a decision". Peter "heard what the Pharisees and the priests were saying, and he heard what Jesus was saying in his heart: 'what do I do?' He says: "I do what Jesus tells me, not what you want me to do". And he went on like this".
"In our lives," Pope Francis said, "we also hear proposals that do not come from Jesus, that do not come from God. You understand, our weaknesses sometimes lead us down that road. Or the other one that is more dangerous still: let's make a deal, a little of God and a little of you. Let's make an agreement and so we go through life with a double life: a little bit of the life of what we hear Jesus telling us, and a little bit of the life of what we hear the world, the powers of the world, and so on'. But it is a system that 'does not go'. In fact, "in the book of Revelation, the Lord says: this does not go, because then you are neither bad nor good: you are lukewarm. I condemn you'.
The Pontiff warned against this very temptation. "If Peter had said to these priests, 'let us speak as friends and establish a status vivendi', perhaps it would have gone well". But it would not be a choice proper to 'the love that comes when we hear Jesus'. A choice that brings consequences. "What happens," the Holy Father continued, "when we hear Jesus? Sometimes those who make the other proposal become furious and the road ends in persecution. Right now, I said it, we have so many sisters and brothers who in order to obey, to hear, to listen to what Jesus asks of them are under persecution. Let us always remember these brothers and sisters who put meat on the fire and tell us with their lives: 'I want to obey, to go the way Jesus tells me'".
With today's liturgy "the Church invites us" to "go the way of Jesus" and "not to hear those proposals that the world makes to us, those proposals of sin or those so-and-so, half-and-half proposals": it is, he reiterated, a way of life that "does not go" and "will not make us happy".
In this choice of obedience to God and not to the world, without giving in to compromise, the Christian is not alone. "Where do we have - the Pope wondered - the help to go on the way of hearing Jesus? In the Holy Spirit. Of these things we are witnesses: it is the Holy Spirit that God has given to those who obey him". Therefore, he said, 'it is the Holy Spirit within us that gives us strength to go'. The Gospel of John (3:31-36), proclaimed in the celebration, with a beautiful expression assures: "For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God: without measure he gives the Spirit. Our Father gives us the Spirit, without measure, to hear Jesus, to feel Jesus and to go on the way of Jesus".
Pope Francis concluded his homily with an invitation to be courageous in the different situations of life. "We ask for the grace of courage. We will always have sins: we are all sinners'. But we need "the courage to say: 'Lord, I am a sinner, sometimes I obey worldly things but I want to obey you, I want to go your way'. Let us ask for this grace, to always go the way of Jesus, and when we do not, to ask for forgiveness: the Lord forgives us, because He is so good."
[Pope Francis, S. Marta homily, in L'Osservatore Romano 12/04/2013]
