Pope Francis recalled that “God always seeks us” without making an “examination to assess our merits,” but with “unconditional and gratuitous love.”
The Holy Father reflected to the faithful during the Angelus on 24 September l, Sunday from the window of the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican about the Gospel of the day, where “the owner of a vineyard goes out from the early hours of dawn until night to call some laborers, but, at In the end, he pays everyone in the same way, even those who have worked only one hour (cf. Mt 20:1-16).”
The Pontiff explained that in this parable, “the workers are not only men but God, who always goes out, without tiring, all day long.”
“This is God: he does not wait for our efforts to come to us, he does not give us an exam to assess our merits before looking for us, he does not give up if we take a while to respond; On the contrary, He has often taken the initiative and in Jesus ‘has gone out’ towards us, to show us his love,” he highlighted.
Pope Francis reiterated that “He seeks us and always waits for us” and stressed that “the justice of God” is a “superior justice.”
“Human justice,” the Holy Father pointed out, “dictates giving each person his or her due, according to what he or she deserves, while God’s justice does not measure love on the scale of our performance, our benefits, and our failures: God He loves us and that’s enough, he loves us because we are children, and he does it with unconditional and free love.
We run the risk of having a “commercial” relationship with God, “focusing more on our own goodness than on the generosity of his grace.”
“Sometimes also as a Church, instead of going out at every hour of the day and extending our arms to everyone, we can feel like we are at the top of the class, judging the distant others, without thinking that God also loves them with the same love.” what it has for us.”
The Holy Father recalled that “in our relationships, which are the fabric of society, the justice that we practice is sometimes not capable of leaving the cage of calculation and we limit ourselves to giving according to what we receive, without daring more, without “bet on the effectiveness of good done freely and of love offered with openness of heart.”
For this reason, he invited the faithful to ask themselves: “Do I know how to go out to others? And, am I generous towards everyone, do I know how to give that ‘more’ of understanding and forgiveness, as Jesus teaches me?”