Encountering Truth by Pope Francis

Author:Pope Francis [Lombardi, Federico]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2015-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

81

We meet God in kissing the feet of Jesus in the weakest of our brothers

After the Resurrection, Jesus appeared to the apostles, but Thomas wasn’t there. “He wanted him to wait a week. The Lord knows why he does what he does. And he gives each one of us the time that he believes is best for us. He gave Thomas a week.” Jesus shows himself with his wounds: “His whole body was clean, beautiful, full of light, but the wounds were there, and they are still there,” and when the Lord comes, at the end of the world, “he will show us his wounds.” In order to believe, Thomas wanted to put his fingers into those wounds:

“He was stubborn. But the Lord wanted a stubborn man to help us understand something greater. Thomas saw the Lord; he was invited to put his finger in the nail marks, to put his hand in his side, and he did not say: ‘It is true, the Lord is risen!’ No! He went further. He said: ‘My Lord and my God!’ The first of the disciples who makes the confession of the divinity of Christ, after the Resurrection. And he worshiped him.

“And in this way we understand the Lord’s intention in making him wait: to use even his incredulity to bring him not to the affirmation of the Resurrection but to the affirmation of his divinity.” The “way to the encounter with Jesus-God is his wounds. There is no other.

“In the history of the Church there have been some mistakes in the way toward God. Some have believed that the living God, the God of the Christians can be found by the way of meditation, and going higher in meditation. That is dangerous. How many get lost on that way and do not arrive. Perhaps they do arrive at the knowledge of God, but not of Jesus Christ, Son of God, second Person of the Trinity. They don’t get there. It is the way of the Gnostics, isn’t it? They are good, they work, but it’s not the right way. It is very complicated, and it does not bring you to a good harbor.

“Others have thought that in order to get to God we have to be mortified, austere, and have chosen the way of penance: just penance and fasting. And these too have not arrived at the living God, at the living God Jesus Christ. They are the Pelagians, who believe they can get there by their own efforts.” But Jesus tells us that the way to encounter him is by finding his wounds.

“And you find the wounds of Jesus by doing the works of mercy, giving to the body—to the body—and also to the soul, but to the body—I emphasize this—of your stricken brother, because he is hungry, because he is thirsty, because he is naked, because he is humiliated, because he is a slave, because he is in prison, because he is in the hospital. These are the wounds of Jesus today.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.