"Those who teach the people of God" must not be closed but open to dialogue and must not try to silence those who preach the news of God. "Today is Pope Benedict XVI’s birthday. I offered Mass for him, and I invite you to pray for him, so that the Lord sustain him and give him a lot of joy and happiness".

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Those who teach the people of God" must not be closed but open to dialogue and must not try to silence those who preach the news of God, so as to save themselves" from the wrath of God, which, if they do not change their attitude , will remain on them".

Pope Francis explained this in his homily at Mass celebrated this morning in Casa Santa Marta, taking a cue from the passage in Acts in which the priests and leaders order Jesus' disciples not to preach the Gospel to the people.

They became infuriated, they are “full of jealousy,” because miracles took place in the presence of the disciples, the people followed them, “and the number of believers grew.” They put the disciples in jail, but in the night, the Angel of the Lord freed them and they returned to proclaiming the Gospel. When he was arrested and questioned again, Peter responded to the threats of the high priest: “We must obey God rather than men.”

The priests did not understand: But they were teachers, they had studied the history of the people, they had studied the prophecies, they had studied the law, they knew all about the theology of the people of Israel, the revelation of God, they knew everything, they were teachers, and they were incapable of recognizing the salvation of God. But why this hardness of hard? Because it is not a hardness of the head, it is not simple stubbornness. Here it is hardness… And one can ask: What is the path of this stubbornness, this total stubbornness, of head and of heart?

 “The history of this stubbornness, the journey,” the Pope emphasized, “is that of closing in on oneself, is that of not dialoguing, it is the lack of dialogue”: They didn’t know to dialogue, they didn’t know to dialogue with God, because they didn’t know to pray and to hear the voice of God, and they didn’t know to dialogue with others. ‘But why did they understand in this way?’ They only interpreted how the law could be more precise, but they were closed to the signs of God in history, they were closed to the people, to their people. They were closed, closed. And the lack of dialogue, this closure of the heart, brought them to the point of not obeying God. This is the drama of these teachers of Israel, of these theologians of the people of God: they didn’t know to listen, they didn’t know to dialogue. Dialogue takes place with God and with the brethren.

And the sign that reveals that a person “does not know to dialogue,” “is not open to the voice of the Lord, to the signs that the Lord does among the people,” the Pope said, is the “fury and the desire to silence all those who preach in this case the newness of God, that is that Jesus is Risen. There’s no reason, but they reach this point. It is a sorrowful journey. These are the same people that paid the guards at the sepulchre to say that the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus. They did everything they could to not open themselves to the voice of God.”

And in this Mass let us pray for the teachers, for the doctors, for those who teach the people of God, that they would not be closed in on themselves, that they would dialogue, and so save themselves from the wrath of God, which, if they do not change their attitude, will remain upon them.

 

 

• Vatican
• pope
• francis
• homily
• casa
• santa
• marta