Christian life is "simple", just put Jesus at the center of our daily
choices. And this involves knowing him, worshiping him, following him
said Pope Francis at Mass this morning in Santa Marta.
The Pope
stressed that the center of Christian life is always Jesus, the first
and last word of the Father, "the Lord of the universe ", the" Savior of
the world. There is no other, he is the only one".
"This is the center of our life: Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is manifest,
has shown himself to us, we are invited to know him, to recognize him,
in life, in so many circumstances of life, recognizing Jesus, knowing
Jesus: 'But I, father, I know the life of that saint, I know about the
appearances of this one and that one from ... '. That's right, the
saints are the saints, they are great! But not all appearances are true,
eh! The saints are important but the center is Jesus Christ: without
Jesus Christ there are no saints! And here the question: is Jesus Christ
the center of my life? What is my relationship with Jesus Christ? ".
"To make sure that Jesus is at the center of our lives" there are three
tasks: the first is to know Jesus to recognize him. At the time, many
did not recognize him, "the teachers of the law, the chief priests, the
scribes, the Sadducees, Pharisees." Indeed, "they persecuted him, they
killed him." You have to ask: "Am I interested in knowing Jesus? Or
maybe more interested in the soap opera or gossip or ambitions or
knowing the lives of others? ". "To know Jesus is prayer, the Holy
Spirit", but there is also the Gospel, which we must take with us to
read a passage every day: "It 's the only way to know Jesus." Then "the
Holy Spirit will do the rest. This is the seed. The Holy Spirit makes
the seeds sprout and grow is the ".
The second task is to worship Jesus. Do not just ask him for things and
thank him. And there are two ways of worshiping Jesus, "the prayer of
adoration in silence" and "then removing the other things that we love,
that interest us most from our hearts. No, only God. " "The other things
are only necessary if I am able to worship God alone." "There is a
small prayer that we pray, the Glory: 'Glory be to the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit', but many times we recite it like parrots. But this
prayer is worship! 'Gloria': I worship the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit. Worship, with little prayers with silence before the greatness
of God, worship Jesus and say: 'You are the one, you are the beginning
and the end, and I want to stay with you all my life, throughout
eternity. You're the only one'. And rid yourself of the things that
prevent you from worshiping Jesus. "
The third task is to follow Jesus, as today's Gospel says, Jesus called
the first disciples. It means to put Jesus at the center of our lives.
"It’s simple Christian life, it’s very simple, but we need the grace of
the Holy Spirit to awake this desire to know Jesus in us, to worship
Jesus and follow Jesus. And for this we asked the Lord in the Collect
earlier to know what to do, to have the strength to do it. That in the
simplicity of each day - because to be Christians every day we do not
need weird things, difficult things, superfluous things, no, it's simple
- the Lord give us the grace to know Jesus, to worship Jesus and follow
Jesus".