Pope: priests need "true humility" and recognize they are sinners to receive the gift of salvation
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - We must be "true humble", "in the flesh", recognizing that we are "concrete sinners ", "not sinners with that superficial humility that seems just for show, no? Oh no, we must have strong humility." The only way to truly receive the gift of Christ's salvation, avoiding any form of self-justification, is to recognize that we are weak "earthen vessels" and sinners. This is the '"model" that Pope Francis recommended "to we priests" during morning Mass celebrated in the Casa Santa Marta chapel.
Francis, reports Vatican Radio, was commenting on the passage of the Letter to the Corinthians in which St. Paul explains that, in order for people to clearly understand that the "extraordinary power" of faith is God's work, it was poured in sinful men, in "earthen vessels". But the relationship "between the grace and power of Jesus Christ" and we poor sinners gives rise to a "dialogue of salvation." But it is a dialogue that needs to avoid any form of "self-justification", "it must be as we are." "Paul has spoken many times - it's almost like a chorus - about his sins. 'But I tell you this: I am the least of the apostles for I have persecuted the Church,...' He always returns to his memory of sin. He feels he is a sinner. But not even then does he say: 'I have been, but now I am a saint, no. Even now, [there is] a thorn of Satan in my flesh. It makes us see our own weakness. Our own sin. It is the sinner who accepts Jesus Christ. Who dialogues with Jesus Christ. "
The key, for the Pope, is humility. Paul publically confesses "his curriculum of service," in short everything that he has done as an Apostle sent by Jesus. But not for this does he hide himself or his "handbook", that is, his sins. "This is also the model of humility for us priests, us ordained ministers. If we only pride ourselves on our curriculum and nothing more, we will end up being wrong. We can not proclaim Jesus Christ as Savior, because deep down we don't feel it to be so. Instead we have to be humble, but with real humility, with name and surname: 'I am a sinner for this reason, for this, for this.' Just as Paul does: 'I persecuted the Church", as he does, concrete sinners. Not sinners with that humility which seems just for show, no? Oh no, strong humility. "
"The humility of the priest, the humility of a Christian is concrete. For which, therefore, if a Christian fails, "to make this confession to himself and to the Church, then something is wrong," and the first thing to fail will be our ability "understand the beauty of salvation that Jesus brings us. Brothers, we have a treasure: that of Jesus Christ the Saviour. The Cross of Jesus Christ, this treasure of which we pride ourselves - but we have it in a clay vessel. Let us vaunt also our 'handbook' of our sins. Thus is the dialogue Christian and Catholic: concrete, because the salvation of Jesus Christ is concrete. Jesus Christ has not saved us with an idea, an intellectual program, no. He saved with His flesh, with the concreteness of flesh. He is lowered, made man, made flesh until the end. This is a gift that we can only understand; only receive, in earthen vessels. "
The Samaritan woman, as well, who met Jesus and after speaking to him told her countrymen first of her sin and then about having met the Lord, behaved in a similar way to Paul. "I believe," said Pope Francis, "that this woman is in heaven, sure," because, as [the Italian author Alessandro] Manzoni once said, 'I have never found that the Lord began a miracle without finishing it well' and this miracle that He began definitely ended well in heaven." The Pope concluded saying, let us ask her, "to help us to be vessels of clay in order to carry and understand the glorious mystery of Jesus Christ."
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