The Pope: reject sin, strongly ask for the grace of conversion

Like every Sunday, Pope Francis leaned out of the window of the Apostolic Palace to pray with the faithful present in St. Peter’s Square the Marian prayer of the Angelus Sunday. On this second Sunday of Advent, he reflected on the figure and work of John the Baptist who “indicated to his contemporaries a journey of faith similar to that which Advent offers us”: this journey of faith – affirmed the Pontiff – is a way of conversion.

Conversion involves detachment from sin and worldliness

As taught by the Baptist, who in the Judean wilderness proclaimed “a baptism of conversion for the forgiveness of sins,” to convert, Francis explained “means to pass from evil to good, from sin to the love of God ”, both in moral and spiritual life. At that time, “receiving baptism was an outward and visible sign of conversion” for those who listened to Baptist preaching and “decided to do penance”. However, baptism “was useless without the willingness to repent and change your life.”

John the Baptist, an austere man, who renounces the superfluous and seeks the essential “, underlined François,” is the example of this detachment from sin and worldliness “.

The purpose of fellowship and friendship with God

But the Pope also spoke of the “other aspect” of conversion, which is “the end of the path” constituted by “the search for God and his kingdom”:

This goal “is not easy”, added the Holy Father, “because there are many bonds which keep us close to sin: inconstancy, discouragement, malice, bad environment and bad examples”. Sometimes – he continued – the impulse we feel towards the Lord is too weak and it almost seems that God is silent; His promises of consolation seem distant and unreal to us, like the image of the diligent and caring shepherd that resonates in the reading of Isaiah today. It is then that the “temptation” is felt to say that it is “impossible to truly convert”: this discouragement, said the Pope, “is the quicksand of a mediocre existence”.

A “grace” that must be asked with force

“What can we do in these cases?” Asked Pope Francis. “First of all, remember that conversion is a grace”, he affirmed, and, as “no one can be converted with his own strength”, “we must ask God with strength to convert us” .

At the end of his reflection, the Sovereign Pontiff prayed that Mary Most Holy, whom we will celebrate the day after tomorrow as Immaculate Conception, “help us to detach ourselves more and more from sin and worldliness, to open ourselves to God, to his word, to his love which regenerates and saves ”.

No pandemic or crisis can extinguish the light of God

After the Marian prayer, the Pontiff asked that in these days when so many homes are preparing the Christmas tree and the manger “for the joy of children and adults”, we go beyond these “signs of hope”, it is that is to say to its meaning: to Jesus, the love of God that he revealed to us and to the infinite goodness that made the world shine.