VATICAN - The Pope’s weekly teaching focuses on Psalm 61: if we were more aware of our frailty and limits we would not turn to idols, we would place all our trust in the Lord, source of eternity and peace

Vatican City (Fides Service) - This morning during his teaching at the Wednesday Audience Pope John Paul II reflected on Psalm 61 and said that love of violence, greed, covetousness, viewed as means for acquiring power and prestige are the opposite to firm trust in God: “God alone is our peace” (Vespers Wednesday week 2; reading Ps 61,2-3.8-9.12-13).
He said the words of the Psalm “are a hymn of trust... a serene and confident ejaculation, an invocation which is a programme for life: ‘In God alone is my soul at rest. He alone is my rock, my stronghold.” The Psalm compares two kinds of trust, the Pope explained: “two fundamental decisions, one good the other evil, which imply two different forms of moral behaviour. There is first of all trust in God, exalted in the initial invocation where a symbol of stability and security like a rock enters the scene, «a rock of defence», a fortress and stronghold of protection.... There is also trust of idolatry, on which the Psalmist sets his critical attention. This trust searches for security and stability through violence, greed and riches. The divine call is clear: «Trust not in extortion; in plunder take no empty pride although wealth abound set not your heart upon it!».”
The Pope mentions three idols contrary to human dignity and social coexistence: “violence to which sadly humanity continues to resort even in these days of bloodshed”, accompanied by war, oppression, prevarication, torture and killing; the second false God is greed, “expressed in extortion, social injustice, usury, political and economic corruption”; riches is the third idol “to which the human heart attaches itself in the mistaken hope of avoiding death and acquiring prestige and power.”
“If we were more aware of human frailty and limits we would not choose to put our trust in idols, or organise our life on the scale of fragile and inconsistent pseudo-values. We would turn instead to that other trust, centred on the Lord, source of eternity and peace”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 10/11/2004, Righe 28, Parole 386)