“Jesus calls us to change our lives, to change paths, calls us to conversion.»
According to Vatican Radio, Pope Francis gave this reminder today, Oct. 27, 2017, during his daily morning Mass in his residence Casa Santa Marta, as he reflected on today’s Gospel.
“Changing our way of thinking, changing our way of feeling. Your heart, which was worldly, pagan, now becomes Christian with the strength of Christ: to change, this is conversion. And changing your manner of acting: your works must change.”
A proper conversion, the Holy Father said, “involves everything, body and soul, everything.”
This change, the Pope warned, is not a change «made with make-up,» but a change «the Holy Spirit makes, within.»
This is a «battle,» the Pope said, because it involves that we fight against evil in our own hearts. This is, he noted, “a struggle that does not give you ease, but gives you peace.”
“Easygoing Christians, who don’t fight, don’t exist,” the Pope noted: “Those are not Christians, they are lukewarm.”
The Holy Father invited those gathered to make a daily examination of conscience to «help us in this,” in fighting against the “maladies of worldliness.”
«We must allow Jesus to enter, and must “ask ourselves, each day: how have I passed from worldliness, from sin, to grace? Have I made room for the Holy Spirit, so that He could act?”
Pope Francis concluded, saying that for conversion, “a generous and faithful heart” is needed, a heart truly «faithful to the Word of God.”