Francis: “Beneath rigidity there is something else, there is often wickedness”
Those who wont bend on the Law are slaves to "freedom" and underneath it all there is wickedness, LOL
SOURCE
At this morning’s mass in St. Martha’s House, the Pope said rigid people lead a “double life”, they seem good but they often aren’t; they are strangers to God’s freedom, “slaves of the law”. “How they suffer”!
Beneath the rigid exterior of a person who is not free because he or she
is a slave to the law, is a double life, something hidden, some sort of
disease. Often wickedness. By contrast, the Lord gives freedom, in
addition to meekness and kindness, Pope Francis said in this morning’s
homily in St. Martha’s House.
In today’s Gospel story, Christ heals a
woman on a Saturday, stirring feelings of contempt and protest in the
synagogue chief who claimed the “Law of the Lord” was violated: “It is
not easy,” the Pope remarked, “to walk in the Law of the Lord,” it is “a
grace we need to ask for”.
The Son of God calls the synagogue
chief a hypocrite, a word “he uses so often to refer to those who are
rigid and unyielding in their insistence on applying the law down to the
last letter”. These people are not free, “they are slaves of the Law”.
But “the Law was not made to enslave us but to set us free, to make us
children” of the Lord. “Beneath rigidity there is something else,
always! This is why Jesus says: hypocrites!”
Francis said:
“beneath rigidity there is something hidden about a person’s life.
Rigidity is not a gift of God. Meekness is; kindness is; benevolence is;
forgiveness is. But rigidity is not! Beneath rigidity there is always
something hidden, in many cases a double life; but there is also some
sort of disease lingering there. How the rigid suffer: when they are
sincere and they acknowledge this they suffer! Because they are unable
to feel the freedom that God’s children feel; they do not know what it
is like to walk in the Law of the Lord and they are not blessed. And
they suffer so much!” They seem “good because they follow the Law; but
beneath that there is something not so nice about them: either they are
bad or they are hypocrites or they are ill. They suffer!”
The
Bishop of Rome recalled the parable of the Prodigal Son: the elder son’s
attitude of indignation shows what lies behind some forms of goodness;
“The arrogance of believing oneself to be right”. “Beneath one’s good
actions lies arrogance. He knew he had a father and in his darkest hour
he went to his father; he had only ever seen his father as a master not
as a father. H ewas rigid; he walked in the Law in a rigid way. The
other one set the Law aside and went off without the law, against the
Law but there came a point when he remembered his father and came back.
And he was forgiven. It is not easy walking in the Law of the lord
without drifting towards rigidity.”
The Pope concluded by
invoking God and inviting faithful to pray “for our brothers and sisters
who believe that walking in the Law of the Lord means becoming rigid.
May the Lord show them that He is the Father and He likes mercy,
tenderness, kindness, meekness and humility. May he teach us all to walk
in the Law of the Lord, adopting all of these attitudes”.
In Santa Marta pope warns of those who have a rigid attitude and don't journey forward
In Santa Marta, the pope spoke about the ability to evolve and be open to the will of the Holy Spirit. He said to be constantly evolving and changing is what helps people grow and continue forward with their lives.
POPE FRANCIS
"The
flour ceases to be flour and becomes bread because it is docile to the
strength of the yeast and the yeast allows itself to be mixed in with
the flour… I don’t know, flour has no feelings but allowing itself to be
mixed in one could think that there is some suffering here, right? But
the Kingdom too, the Kingdom grows in this way and then in the end it is
bread for everybody.”
Through his example of the combination of yeast and flour, he explained how one must die to selfish desires in order to positively contribute to the Kingdom of God.
EXCERPTS OF HOMILY IN ENGLISH
"What
is the Kingdom of God? Well, perhaps the Kingdom of God is a very
well-made structure, everything tidy, organization charts all prepared,
everything and the person who does not enter (into this structure) is
not in the Kingdom of God. No, the same thing can happen to the Kingdom
of God as happens to the Law: unchanging, rigidity… the Law is about
moving forward, the Kingdom of God is moving, it is not standing still.
What’s more – the Kingdom of God is re-creating itself every day.”
"What
is the attitude that the Lord asks from us in order that the Kingdom of
God can grow and be bread for everybody and is a house too for
everybody? Docility: the Kingdom of God grows through docility to the
strength of the Holy Spirit. The flour ceases to be flour and becomes
bread because it is docile to the strength of the yeast and the yeast
allows itself to be mixed in with the flour… I don’t know, flour has no
feelings but allowing itself to be mixed in one could think that there
is some suffering here, right? But the Kingdom too, the Kingdom grows in
this way and then in the end it is bread for everybody.”
"A
rigid person only has masters and no father. The Kingdom of God is like
a mother that grows and is fertile, gives of herself so that her
children have food and lodging, according to the example of the Lord.
Today is a day to ask for the grace of docility to the Holy Spirit. Many
times we are not docile to our moods, our judgements. ‘But I do what I
want…. The Kingdom does not grow in this way and neither do we grow. It
is docility to the Holy Spirit that makes us grow and be transformed
like the yeast and the seed. May the Lord give us all the grace of this
docility.”
Part of his job is to do away with any sort of "fundamentalism" in preparation for the False Prophet and the formal New age religion