Only a Slave to God’s love has True Freedom

by Caleb SC · February 23, 2017

The freedom that comes from receiving the gift of a joyful Christian life can only come to those who are held captive by God’s love, Pope Francis said.

People who are afraid of God’s gift of love, however, seek only the rigid adherence to the law and can only pray a “closed, sad prayer”, the pope said during Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

“When you become a slave to love, you are free! That is a beautiful slavery,” the pope said.

The day’s responsorial psalm, Psalm 104, he noted, is a song of praise to God who loved his creatures even before the creation of the universe.

God also showed his love in the act of “re-creation”, sending Jesus Christ into the world to “turn ugliness into beauty, error into truth and evil into good”, the pope said.

This gift of God’s love, he added, was difficult for the scribes and Pharisees to understand as they “did not know how to receive the things from God as a gift” and were concerned only with “seeking refuge in the rigidity of the commandments”.

Christians, he continued, must become like children who find their security in God’s love and tenderness rather than “hiding behind the closed rigidity of the commandments”.

“May the Lord help us understand this great thing and help us understand what God did before creating the world: he loved! May the Lord help us understand his love for us and may we say—as we said today—‘You are great O Lord! Thank you, Thank you!’” Pope Francis said.— By Junno Arocho Esteves, CNS