Pope Francis stressed that the Baptism of the Lord, which the Church celebrates this Sunday, shows what God’s justice really is like before thousands of faithful who present in the Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square on 8 January, Sunday.
The Holy Father pointed out that in the Baptism that John confers on Jesus in the Jordan River, Christ tells him: “‘Now let me do this because it is convenient that so let us fulfill all righteousness’ Fulfill all righteousness: What does it mean?
Pope Francis explained that “by having John baptize him, Jesus reveals to us the justice of God, which he has come to bring into the world .”
“Many times we have a limited idea of justice, and we think that it means: the one who is wrong, pays, and thus repairs the evil that he has done. But God’s justice, as Scripture teaches, is much greater: it does not have the condemnation of the guilty as its end of him, but his salvation and his regeneration of him, making him just.
The Holy Father also stressed that “it is a justice that comes from love, from those enrails of compassion and mercy that are the very heart of God, the Father who is moved when we are oppressed by evil and fall under the weight of sins ” and of the fragilities”.
“And then we understand that, on the banks of the Jordan, Jesus reveals to us the meaning of his mission: He has come to carry out divine justice, which is to save sinners; he has come to take on his shoulders the sin of the world and descend into the waters of the abyss, of death, in order to recover us and prevent us from drowning”.
The Holy Father then recalled what Benedict XVI said in a homily on 13 January 2008: “God wanted to save us by going to the bottom of the abyss of death, so that every person, even those who have fallen so low that he can no longer see heaven, he can find the hand of God to hold on to in order to rise from the darkness and see again the light for which he was created.
Continuing with his reflection, Pope Francis told those present that “we too, disciples of Jesus, are called to exercise justice in this way in relationships with others, in the Church, in society .”
That is, “not with the harshness of those who judge and condemn, dividing people into good and bad, but with the mercy of those who welcome, sharing the wounds and frailties of sisters and brothers in order to lift them up.”
“ I would like to say it like this: not dividing, but sharing. Not divide, but share. Let’s do like Jesus: let’s share, let’s carry each other’s weights, let’s look at each other with compassion, let’s help each other”.
To conclude, the Holy Father encouraged us to ask ourselves: “Am I a person who divides or who shares? Let us not fall into the gossip that harms, that kills society, that kills fraternity”.
“And now let us pray to the Virgin, who gave birth to Jesus, immersing him in our fragility so that we could recover life,” the Pope concluded.