VATICAN - “Christ calls us to counter to evil with a serious examination of conscience and commitment to purify our life … individuals and societies which live without ever questioning their style of life are destined to ruin”: Pope Benedict XVI at the Angelus

Vatican City (Fides Service) - Conversion was the subject of the Pope’s reflection before the midday Angelus prayer in Sunday 11 March focussed on the Sunday Gospel and Jesus’ warning: " . The Holy Father explained that Jesus intended to convince his listeners of the “necessity of conversion”. “He proposes it in realistic rather than moralistic terms, as the only adequate response to events which shatter human certainties” Pope Benedict XVI said, recalling that in the face of certain tragedies as those narrated in the Gospel, “true wisdom is to realise the precariousness of our existence and assume an attitude of responsibility: do penance and improve our lives. This is wisdom, this is the most effective answer to evil at every level, interpersonal, social and international”. Christ calls us to counter evil with a serious examination of conscience and commitment to purify our life. “In fact individuals and societies which live without ever questioning their style of life are destined to ruin. Conversion, instead, while it does not prevent difficulties and misfortunes, enables us to face them in a different ‘manner’... In brief: conversion overcomes evil at the root which is sin, although it cannot always avoid the consequences.”
The Pope concluding calling on the Blessed Virgin Mary to intercede that during Lent, “every Christian may rediscover the greatness, the beauty I would say of conversion. May Our Lady help us to realise that doing penance and correcting our behaviour is not moralism, it is the best way of improving one’s self and society”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 12/3/2007; righe 21, parole 301)