Pope Francis highlighted that “the difficulty today consists of transmitting passion to those who lost it a long time ago” and stated that there are no “progressives and conservatives”, but rather “those in love and accustomed”. The Pope was speaking to the Roman Curia on Thursday.
On the morning of December 21, one of the most relevant events of the year took place in the Vatican’s Hall of Blessings, the Christmas speech that Pope Francis addresses to the Curia of Rome.
At the beginning of his message, the Holy Father noted that it is “comforting to discover” that even in the places of pain affected by the “wounds that inhabit our history,” “God is present in this cradle, in this manger, which today he chose to be born and bring the love of the Father to all; and he makes himself present according to his own style, with closeness, compassion and tenderness.”
Next, he presented three tips for living “their path of faith”: listen, discern and walk. Furthermore, to explain each of these elements she relied on examples of some “Christmas protagonists.”
First of all, Pope Francis highlighted that the Virgin Mary reminds us of listening, while clarifying that “listening” is a biblical verb that does not refer only to hearing, “but implies the participation of the heart and, therefore, of life itself.”
The Pontiff referred to an “inner listening capable of understanding the desires and needs of others” and assured that this attitude “is always the beginning of a path.”
In this sense, he emphasized that listening “on our knees” is the best way “to truly listen, because it means that we do not place ourselves in front of the other in the position of someone who believes they already know everything, of someone who has already interpreted things even before listening to them, from those who look over their shoulders, but, on the contrary, we open ourselves to the mystery of the other, willing to humbly receive whatever they want to give us.”
“When we communicate with each other,” the Pontiff continued, “we run the risk of being like ravening wolves. “We immediately try to devour the other’s words, without really listening to them, and immediately we pour our impressions and our judgments on them.”
For this reason, he advised listening and then, in silence, “we welcome, reflect, interpret, and only then can we give an answer. We learn all this in prayer, because it expands the heart, lowers our egocentrism from its pedestal, educates us to listen to others and generates in us the silence of contemplation.”
He also invited people to learn “contemplation in prayer, kneeling before the Lord” and urged them to “recover a contemplative spirit.”
He reiterated that in the Curia it is also necessary to learn the art of listening and encouraged them to do so “without prejudice, with openness and sincerity; with my heart, on my knees. Let us listen to each other, trying to understand well what our brother says, to capture his needs and, in some way, the life that is hidden behind those words, without judging.”
Pope Francis proposed Saint John the Baptist as an example of discernment, which he defined as “the art of spiritual life that strips us of the pretense of already knowing everything, of the risk of thinking that it is enough to apply the rules, of the temptation to proceed, even in the life of the Curia, simply repeating schemes, without considering that the Mystery of God always surpasses us and that the lives of people and the reality that surrounds us are and always continue to be superior to ideas and theories ”.
For the Holy Father, spiritual discernment is necessary to “scrutinize the will of God, question the inner emotions of our hearts, and then evaluate the decisions that must be made and the choices that must be made.”
“Discernment should help us, also in the work of the Curia, to be docile to the Holy Spirit, to be able to choose orientations and make decisions not according to worldly criteria, or simply applying regulations, but according to the Gospel,” he noted.
Thirdly, Pope Francis encouraged those present to “walk” as the Three Wise Men did and explained that the call of the Lord “sets us on a path, takes us out of our comfort zone, questions our acquisitions and, without further ado, It liberates us, transforms us, illuminates the eyes of our hearts to make us understand what hope he has called us to.”
He stressed that also in service in the Curia it is important to stay on the path, “not stop searching and delving into the truth, overcoming the temptation to remain paralyzed and ‘labyrinth’; within our fences and fears.”
He assured that “fears, rigidities and the repetition of patterns generate immobility, which has the apparent advantage of not creating problems – quieta non movere -, they lead us to wander idly in our labyrinths, harming the service that we are called to offer to society.” Church and the entire world.”
He therefore urged us to remain “vigilant against the fixity of ideology that, often, under the appearance of good intentions, separates us from reality and prevents us from walking.”
Furthermore, he assured that discernment begins “from the top”: “when the service we provide runs the risk of flattening out, of ‘labyrinthine’ in rigidity or mediocrity, when we find ourselves entangled in the networks of bureaucracy and ‘ “get out of trouble’, let us remember to look upward, to begin again from God, to allow ourselves to be illuminated by his Word, to always find the courage to begin again.”
“It takes courage to walk, to advance further. “It is a matter of love,” said the Holy Father. He also explained that the difficulty today “consists of transmitting passion to those who lost it a long time ago” and specified that “sixty years after the Council, we continue to debate the division between ‘progressives’ and ‘conservatives’, while the central difference It is between ‘in love’ and ‘accustomed’. This is the difference. “And only those who love walk,” he stated.