Pope Francis centered his homily on the Christian identity as sons of God during his morning Mass at Domus Sanctae Marthae this morning. Cardinal Telesphore Placidus Toppo, Archbishop of Ranchi (India), concelebrated Mass with the Holy Father.
Reflecting on the Gospel’s recount of Jesus curing a paralytic, Pope Francis said that first and foremost, Christ had forgiven the man’s sins and after being accused of blasphemy by the scribes, He cures the man.
“In reality, the Pope said, “the healings, the teaching, the strong words against hypocrisy were only a sign, a sign of something more that Jesus was doing, namely, the forgiveness of sins: In Jesus the world is reconciled with God. This is the most profound miracle.”
“This reconciliation is the re-creation of the world: this is the most profound mission of Jesus. The redemption of all of us sinners; and Jesus does this not with words, not with gestures, not walking along the street. No! He does it with His flesh! It is He Himself, God who became one of us, a man, to heal us from within, [He came] to us sinners.”
In freeing us from sin, the Holy Father told the faithful, Jesus made Himself sin by carrying the sins of the world, thus becoming a “new creation.”
“Jesus comes down from glory, humbles Himself, even unto death, death on the Cross, even to the point of crying out: Father, why have you abandoned me? This is His glory, and this is our salvation,” the Pope said.
“This is the greatest miracle. And what does Jesus accomplish with this? He make us sons, with the liberty of sons. Because of what Jesus has done, we can say Father. [If He had not done so] we would never have been able to say this: Father! And to say Father with so good and so beautiful an attitude, with liberty! This is the great miracle of Jesus. We, who were slaves of sin He has made us all free, He has healed us at the very core of our existence. We would do well to think about this, and to think how beautiful it is to be children, and how beautiful this liberty of children is, because the child is in the house, and Jesus has opened the doors of the house to us . . . Now we are in the house!”
Pope Francis concluded his homily that the root of our courage comes from the freedom that Christ gives us in forgiving our sins, making us into children of God.
“That is the root of our courage: I am free, I am a child . . . The Father loves me, and I love the Father! Let us ask the Lord for the grace to truly understand this work of His, what God has done in Him: God has reconciled the world to Himself in Christ, entrusting to us the word of reconciliation and the grace of bearing this word of reconciliation onward, forcefully, with the liberty of children. We are saved in Jesus Christ! And no one can take from us this identity card. This is how I identify myself: as a child of God! What a beautiful identity! Civil status: we are free!”
