[ad_1]
Pope Francis reflects on how, by becoming flesh, God united himself with humanity, loving us in all our fragility and inviting us to share everything with him.
By Vatican News Editor
Pope Francis on Sunday invited the faithful to invite God to their homes, to their families, to share with him their weaknesses and fears to allow him to change their lives.
During the Angelus on the second Sunday after Christmas, the Pope contemplated the tenderness of the Child Jesus in the manger and reflected on the Gospel of John (Jn 1: 1) explaining that, especially in the prologue, “He tells us about Him before He was born.”
He said the apostle uses words similar to those used in the Bible with the creation account, but says that today “He who we contemplate at his birth existed before: before things began, before the universe. It existed before space and time. “In him was life” (Jn 1: 4), before life appeared. “
God communicates with us
The Pope noted that “Saint John calls him the Logos, that is the Word.” And the word, he added, serves to communicate: “you don’t talk alone, you talk to someone.”
The fact that Jesus was, from the beginning, the Word, Pope Francis continued, “means that from the beginning God wants to communicate with us, he wants to speak to us.”
The Son of the Father, Pope Francis explained, “wants to tell us about the beauty of being children of God,” he wants to take away the darkness of evil: “He is ‘the life’ that knows our lives and wants to tell us that he has always loved them” .
“Jesus is the eternal Word of God, who has always thought of us and wanted to communicate with us,” he said.
He became flesh to dwell eternally among us
The Pope explained that thus, as today’s Gospel tells us, Jesus went beyond words, and in fact, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
He reflected on the choice of Saint John of the word meat, that indicates our human condition in all its weakness, in all its fragility.
“It tells us that God became fragile so He could touch our fragility closely,” he said.
“Revealing the wounds of his flesh to the Father,” said the Pope, “Jesus intercedes for us.”
From the moment the Lord became incarnate, Pope Francis explained, nothing in our life is alien to him: “There is nothing that He despises, we can share everything with Him.”
“Dear brother, dear sister, God became flesh to tell you that He loves you like this, in your fragility; right there, where you are most ashamed, ”he said.
The Pope went on to detail how God did not turn back, “He did not dress our humanity as a garment that can be put on and taken off”, never again separated from our flesh. And she will never be separated from him.
He explained that, as the Gospel says, “he came to dwell among us. He did not come to visit us ”.
Open your hearts to the Lord
“What, then, do you want from us?” the Pope asked: “Great intimacy!”
He wants us to share with Him our joys and sufferings, he said, our wishes and fears, hopes and sorrows, people and situations.
The Pope concluded by exhorting the faithful to do just this, to open their hearts to him and to tell him everything.
“Let us stop in silence before the manger to savor the tenderness of God who approached, who became flesh. And without fear, let us invite Him among us, into our homes, into our families, into our weaknesses. It will come and life will change. “
Special greetings from Pope Francis for the New Year
After the Angelus prayer, Pope Francis renewed all his good wishes for the year that has just begun. He said that, as Christians, we know that things will only get better, with God’s help, if we work together for the common good, “putting the weakest and most disadvantaged at the center.”
“We do not know what 2021 will bring, but what each one of us and all of us together can do is commit to taking care of each other and of creation, our common home,” he said.
He revealed that he was saddened to read in the newspapers that there have been cases in recent days in which some people chose to ignore the rules of confinement to “have a good vacation”, without thinking of others who are suffering the consequences of the pandemic.
The Pope expressed his special greeting in particular to those who “begin the New Year with greater difficulties: the sick, the unemployed, those who live in situations of oppression or exploitation.”
He also said that he is close to those families who are waiting for the arrival of a new baby, saying: “A birth is always a promise of hope!”
