The Pope’s Angelus: don’t waste time blaming others



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Jesus puts faith back at its center without outward formality. “There is a sure-fire way to overcome evil,” Pope Francis said at the time of the Sunday Angelus: “Begin by overcoming it within yourself. This is why the Holy Father invited us to ask the Virgin Mary, “who changed history through the purity of her heart”, to “help us to purify ours, overcoming above all the vice of blaming. others and to complain about everything ”

Vatican News

Commenting on today’s Gospel Liturgy which shows scribes and Pharisees in awe of Jesus’ attitude, shocked to see his disciples taking food without performing traditional ritual ablution, the Pope said:

We too might ask ourselves: why did Jesus and his disciples neglect these traditions? After all, these are not bad things, but good ritualistic habits, a simple washing before eating. Why does Jesus not pay attention to them?

Bring faith to your heart

Francis explained that it is important for the Lord to put faith back at its center. “And avoid a risk, which is valid for these scribes as for us: to observe the external formalities, to leave the heart of the faith in the background.”

The risk of a religious appearance

“This is the risk of an apparent religiosity: pretending to be good on the outside, neglecting to purify the heart. There is always the temptation to “fix God” with outward devotion, but Jesus is not content with this worship. He doesn’t want the outside, he wants a faith that reaches the heart “

Bad things are born from the heart

After recalling that Jesus told the crowd that “there is nothing outside of man which, entering into him, can make him unclean” and that, on the contrary, it is “from within, from the heart That bad things are born, the Pontiff added:

“These words are revolutionary, because in the mentality of the time it was thought that certain foods or external contacts made impure. Jesus reverses the perspective: what comes from the outside is not bad, but what is born from the inside “

The Holy Father added that this also concerns us, who tend to think “that evil comes mainly from the outside: from the behavior of others, from those who think badly of us, of society”.

Blame others

“How often do we blame others, society, the world, for everything that happens to us! It is always the fault of the ‘others’: of the people, of those who govern, of bad luck “

He also said that “it seems that the problems always come from the outside”. And that “we spend our time distributing the blame; but spending time blaming others is wasting time ”.

“You cannot be truly religious by complaining: anger, resentment and sadness close the doors to God”

For this reason, Pope Francis invited us to ask the Lord “to free us from the blame of others”. And that we also ask “the grace not to waste time polluting the world with complaints, because it is not Christian”.

On the contrary, Jesus invites us to look at life and the world with the heart. If we look inside we will find almost everything we hate outside “

Learn to feel guilty

Whereas if “we sincerely ask God to purify our hearts”, we will begin “to make the world cleaner”. “Because there is a sure-fire way to overcome evil: to begin by overcoming it within yourself.”

And he concluded by invoking the Virgin Mary, “who changed history by the purity of her heart”, to “help us to purify our own, overcoming above all the vice of blaming others and complaining about everything. “.

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