The Holy Father recalls the cruel fate of children caused by evil during the usual Angelus appointment and concludes by commemorating a painful but hopeful moment for the whole Church.
The famous parable of the prodigal son, which is at the heart of today’s Gospel (cf. Lk 15:1132), not only focuses on the merciful Father who received his prodigal son “with mercy and tenderness”.
No to a religion that consists only of prohibitions and duties
Each of us is “this son and it is moving to think how much the Father always loves us and is waiting for us,” Pope Francis said during the Angelus. In each of us there is also a little bit of the “elder brother who “falls into crisis in front of the father who forgives the rebellious and penitent brother.
Given the older brother’s complaints, “we are tempted to agree with him: he always did his duty, he never left home, that’s why he’s outraged that the father hugs his misbehaving brother”.
The eldest son’s problem is that he imposes the entire relationship with his father on “mere observance of commandments, a sense of duty”. A relationship that in some ways “may reflect our problem with God: losing sight of the fact that he is a father and living a distant religion made of prohibitions and duties”.
The consequence of this distorted view of the relationship to God is “the rigidity towards the neighbor who no longer sees himself as a brother“. So much so that “the eldest son does not say to the father my brother, but your son”. The father responds by saying to him: “Son, you are always with me, and everything that is mine is yours ‘ (v. 31). In other words, he is trying to make him understand that for him ‘each child is his whole life’.
In this context, the Pope mentioned what the protagonist of the novel Papa Goriot by Balzac says: “When I became a father, I understood God“.
Can we be happy for others?
The father “opens his heart to the elder son and reveals to him “two needs, which are not commandments but needs of the heart: “We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come back to life (v. 32)”.
Celebration means “showing our closeness to those who are penitent or on the way, to those in crisis or to those afar off; That is, it points to the call to “overcome fear and discouragement that may arise from remembering one’s mistakes.” Those who have made a mistake “often feel rebuked from their own hearts; Distance, indifference and sharp words do not help “stressed the Pope.
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The attitude of the merciful Father in the parable encourages us to ask ourselves if we like him: “Do we seek far away, do we want to celebrate with him? How much good can an open heart do, true listening, a transparent smile; Party, don’t make yourself uncomfortable!“
“He who has a heart in harmony with God rejoices when he sees a person’s repentance, no matter how serious his faults were,” Francis said. “He does not stop at mistakes, he does not point the finger at evil, but rejoices in the good because the wellbeing of others is mine too! And do we know how we can see others like that? Can we be happy for others?.
War devastates present and future
After the recitation of the Marian prayer, a new appeal for peace in Ukraine, more than a month after “the beginning of this cruel and senseless war, a defeat for us all“.
“It is necessary to reject war said the Holy Father Place of death, where fathers and mothers bury their children, where men kill their brothers without seeing them, where the powerful decide and the poor die. War devastates not only the present but also the future of a society.
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The Pope then recalled that “Since the attack on Ukraine began, every second child has been evicted from the country. That means destroying the future, causing dramatic trauma to the smallest and most innocent of us.
War, a “barbaric and sacrilegious act”, cannot be considered “something inevitable” nor to which we should “never get used to”. If we get out of this story “like before, we’ll all be guilty”. Humanity must understand that the time has come”abolish war, erase it from human history before war erases man from history“.
Francis then renewed the appeal: “Enough! Let’s stop, let our guns be silent, take peace seriously. He then invited everyone to “pray to the Queen of Peace to whom we have consecrated humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine, with a great and intense participation, for which I thank you all”.
Finally, a painful but hopeful reminder: “Just two years ago, from this square, we made the plea for the end of the pandemic: today we did it for the end of the war in Ukraine .
In this regard, Bergoglio recalled the distribution of a “book offered as a tribute by the Covid19 Commission together with the Communications Department in St. Peter’s Square, to invite people to pray without fear in difficult times and always to believe in the Lord “.
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