Pope Francis spoke about love in his homily at Casa Santa Marta. He said loving concretely means dirtying one's hands in works of love.<\/p>\n
POPE FRANCIS Pope Francis said indifference is a way of not loving God and others. He said this must be avoided because love is made manifest in concrete acts of charity.<\/p>\n SUMMARY OF PAPAL HOMILY First of all, the Pope explained, is the fact that \u201cwe love God because He loved us first.\u201d Love, he continued, stems from Him: \u201cI begin to love, or I can begin to love because I know that He loved me first.\u201d He added, \u201cIf He had not loved us we certainly could not love. If a newborn child could speak, he would certainly express the fact that he feels loved by his parents. Parents love their child just as God loves us. He loved us first. This gives birth to and increases our capacity to love,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The second thing the apostle says is that \u201cIf one says, 'I love God' but hates his brother, he is a liar.\u201d John, he pointed out, does not describe such a person as \u2018rude\u2019 or someone \u2018who is wrong.\u2019 He calls him a \u2018liar.\u2019<\/p>\n He went on to analyze the word \u2018liar\u2019 which, he said, is clearly defined in the Bible as \u201cthe devil\u2019s way of being, \u2018the Great Liar,\u2019 as the New Testament tells us, \u2018the father of lies.\u2019 So, the Pope said, \u201cif you say you love God but hate your brother, you are on the other side: you are a liar. There are no concessions to this.\u201d<\/p>\n Many, Pope Francis continued, find justifications for not loving: \u201cSome say \u2018I don't hate, Father, but there are many people who hurt me, or people I can't accept because they are rude or crude.\u201d<\/p>\n He underscored the concrete nature of love indicated by John when he writes \u201cwhoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. If you are not capable of loving people, from the closest to the furthest away, you cannot tell us that you love God: you are a liar,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Pope Francis then reflected on another aspect that can stop people from loving: their wish not \u201cto meddle\u201d in the lives of others. This too, he said is not good, because love \u201cexpresses itself by doing good.\u201d True love, he explained, is expressed in everyday live, with its problems, its feelings of affection and dislike.<\/p>\n Remember, the Pope said quoting from St. Albert Hurtado, \u2018It is good not to do evil, but it is bad not to do good.\u2019 True love, he said \u201cmust lead you to do good, to dirty your hands in works of love.\u201d It is not easy, Pope Francis admitted, but through faith there is the possibility of prevailing over a mentality \u201cthat prevents us from loving.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMay the Lord teach us these truths: the knowledge of having been loved first and the courage to love our brothers.\u201d<\/p>\n Claudia Torres<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 10, 2020. He said indifference to others is a way of not loving God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/jyYrKWDjo5w","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bstamarta1001eng.mp4","international_url":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bstamarta1001int.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>\u201cIf a person says, 'I, to be clean, to be very clean, only drink distilled water,' you'll die, eh? That's not what life requires. True love is not distilled water. It's the water of everyday, with its problems, its affections, with love and with hate. It's this: To love the concrete. Concrete love can't be concocted in a lab.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\n(Source: Vatican News)<\/strong><\/p>\n