In his homily at Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis spoke about the key to salvation: the crucifix. He said many want to abandon the journey when it becomes difficult, but that is when one should rely on God's strength.<\/p>\n
POPE FRANCIS He said looking at the crucifix can even help one overcome the various difficulties in life, such as sadness and sickness.<\/p>\n SUMMARY OF PAPAL HOMILY As they drew closer to the promised land, some of the Israelites became skeptical because the scouts sent by Moses reported a land rich in produce but inhabited by a people who would be impossible to defeat. \u201cBy looking only at their own strength, they forgot the Lord\u2019s strength which had liberated them from 400 years of slavery.<\/p>\n Pope Francis then compares these Israelites who complain about the journey with those people who begin to follow the Lord but then abandon the journey when it gets too tough. It is at these moments that one says, \u201cI\u2019ve had enough! I quit. I\u2019m going back.\u201d Then one begins to reminisce about the past\u2014about the meat, the onions, and other wonderful things\u2026. Such are the illusions the devil proposes. Once we begin to feel the heat of the day on the journey of conversion, the devil makes us see everything we left behind in a beautiful light. The Pope invites us to understand how partial such a \u201csick memory\u201d is. It is a distorted nostalgia because the Israelites had been eating from the table of slavery because they had been slaves in Egypt.<\/p>\n The serpents who bit the people and poisoned them are an external symbol of poisoned hearts. And so the Lord tells Moses to make a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole. This serpent healed anyone who looked at it. \u201cIt was prophetic: it was the figure of Christ on the cross.<\/p>\n And here is the key to our salvation, the key for having patience on the journey of life, the key to overcome our deserts: looking at the Crucifix.\u201d All we need to do is look at Jesus and his wounds, \u201cfor by those wounds we have been healed.\u201d Many crucifixes are beautiful because they also want to express the glory of the cross and the glory of the resurrection Pope Francis explains.<\/p>\n Pope Francis concluded his homily with a memory of his own childhood. One Good Friday he was with his grandmother at a candlelight procession in the parish. When the life-size marble statue of the dead Christ came by, his grandmother made him kneel down. \u201cLook at that,\u201d she said, \u201cbut tomorrow he will rise!\u201d And so, \u201cmy grandmother, when she heard the church bells pealing announcing the Resurrection, had tears in her eyes because she was then beholding Christ\u2019s glory.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" He said the crucifix is a source of strength in life's difficult moments, including sadness and illness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":23741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[195],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/YxmQlluy-wU","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bstamarta2003eng.mp4","international_url":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bstamarta2003int.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49602"}],"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=49602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>\u201cHere is the key to our salvation, the key to our patience on the journey of life, the key to overcoming our deserts: look at the crucifix. Look at the crucified Christ. 'And what should I do, Father?' - 'Look at Him. Look at the sores. Enter into His wounds.' We have been healed by those wounds.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\n(Source: Vatican News)<\/strong><\/p>\n