In his homily at Casa Santa Marta Pope Francis reflected on Jesus Christ's meekness and tenderness towards others, even when persecuted by them. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe pastor, in difficult moments, in the moments when the devil is unleashed, where the pastor is accused, but accused by the Great Accuser through so many people, so many powerful, suffers, offers his life and prays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pope Francis invited pastors to imitate Jesus in being close to the people, not near to the powerful or ideologues whom, he says, \u201cpoison souls.\u201d<\/p>\n
EXCERPTS OF PAPAL HOMILY<\/strong> What gave Jesus authority, Pope Francis explained, was that \u201che spent most of his time on the road\u201d, touching, embracing, listening and looking at the people in the eye. \u201cHe was near them\u201d, the pope said. \u201cthis is what gave him authority.\u201d<\/p>\n Jesus taught the same thing that many others taught, the pope continued. It was how he taught that was different. Jesus \u201cwas meek, and did not cry out. He did not punish the people.\u201d He never trumpeted the fact that he was the Messiah or a Prophet. \u201cIn the Gospel, when Jesus was not with people, he was with the Father praying\u201d, Pope Francis said. His meekness toward the Father was expressed when he \u201cvisited the house of his Father which had become a shopping mall\u2026.\u201d He was angry and threw everyone out, the pope said. \u201cHe did this because he loved the Father, because he was humble before the Father.\u201d<\/p>\n Jesus was overcome with compassion for the widow. Jesus \u201cthought with his heart\u201d, which was not separated from his head, Pope Francis said. Then Jesus tenderly touches her and speaks to her, \u201cDo not weep\u201d. \u201cThis is the icon of the pastor\u201d. The pastor \u201cneeds to have the power and authority that Jesus had, that humility, that meekness, that nearness, the capacity to be compassionate and tender,\u201d the pope said.<\/p>\n That prayer carried him even to the Cross, with strength; even there he had the capacity of drawing near to and healing the soul of the repentant thief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" September 18, 2018. He reflected on Jesus Christ meekness and tenderness towards others even when persecuted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":27853,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[195],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/YAOuJ00R_Ko","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bstamarta1809eng.mp4","international_url":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bstamarta1809int.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48942"}],"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=48942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n(Source: Vatican News)<\/p>\n