By Junno Arocho
VATICAN CITY, Nov. 5, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Pope Benedict XVI yesterday called on faithful to be witnesses of the faith by following the example of the Gospel to «love thy neighbor.» The Holy Father addressed thousands gathered at St. Peter’s for his weekly Angelus address.
Commenting on Sunday’s Gospel, Pope Benedict likened the relationship with God, in practicing the commandment of love to the «good relationship» that a child has with his/her parents. The Holy Father recalled the words of St. John of the Cross’ «Treatise on the Love of God», saying that before being a commandment, «love is a gift, a reality that God makes us know and experience in such a way that like a seed, it can germinate within us and develop in our life.»
«If God’s love has sunk deep roots in a person, he is able to love even those who do not merit this love, just as God loves us. Fathers and mothers do not love their children only when they merit it: they love them always, even if, of course, they make them understand when they have made mistakes,» the Holy Father said.
The Holy Father also said that from God we learn to look at others not only with our own eyes, but «but with the gaze of God, which is the gaze of Jesus Christ.»
«It is a look that comes from the heart and does not stop at the surface; it goes beyond appearances and succeeds in grasping the expectations of the other: of being listened to, of being gratuitously attended to; in a word, of being loved,» the pope said.
Pope Benedict also emphasized the love of God manifested in the Eucharist, which he described as a «twofold love», where gives us himself «so that, nourished by this Bread, we love each other as he loved us.»
The Holy Father concluded his addressed exhorting the faithful present, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, to pray so «that every Christian know how to show his faith in the one true God with a clear witness of love of neighbor.»
