Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - In his midday Angelus reflection on Sunday 1 July, addressing thousands of visitors gathered in St Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI took inspiration from the readings of the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, and dwelt on the theme of “Freedom and Following Christ”.
Jesus, we are told by St Luke the Evangelist turned decisively towards Jerusalem although he knew that death on the cross awaited him, “but in obedience to the will of the Father he offers himself out of love”. The Holy Father underlined: “It is in this obedience to the Father that Jesus achieves his own freedom as conscious choice motivated by love. Who is freer than the Almighty? However He did not live his freedom as arbitration or dominion. He lived it as a service. In this way he ‘filled’ with content freedom which would have otherwise remained an ‘empty’ possibility to do or not do a certain thing. Like the very life of man, freedom draws sense from love”.
Saint Paul the Apostle, writing to Christians in Galatia, says: “After all, brothers, you were called to be free; do not use your freedom as an opening for self-indulgence, but be servants to one another in love” (Gal 5,13). The Pope explained that: “living according to the flesh means giving way to the selfish inclinations of human nature. Living according to the Spirit instead means letting oneself be guided in intention and actions by the love of God given to us in Christ. Christian freedom is therefore anything but arbitrariness; it is following Christ in his gift of self even to the sacrifice of the Cross. It may appear a paradox, but the peak of his freedom, the Lord experienced on the cross, as the peak of love”. On Calvary some shouted to Jesus to come down from the cross but “He demonstrated his freedom as the Son precisely by staying on that gallows to fulfil to the end the merciful will of the Father. This experience has been shared by many other witnesses to the truth: men and women who demonstrated that they were free even in a prison cell and under the threat of torture. ‘The truth will make you free’. Those who belong to the truth will never be slaves to power, instead they will freely choose to serve others”.
After the Marian prayer the Pope expressed his grief for the tragic events in Colombia: “From Colombia comes the sad news of the barbarous murder of eleven regional members of parliament of the Valle del Cauca department, who had been held hostage by the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia for five years. While I pray for the repose of the souls of the victims, I am close to their grieving families and to the beloved nation of Colombia, afflicted once again by fratricidal hatred. I renew my heartfelt appeal for an immediate cessation of kidnapping and return of their loved ones of all those who are still victims of this inadmissible form of violence. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 2/7/2007; righe 22, parole 310)
