Monday, January 09, 2017

Pope: Christian life is simple, know, worship and follow Jesus

http://www.asianews.it/files/img/F___S._Marta_7.jpgChristian 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".