Pope Francis shakes hands with a girl as he arrives to lead his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
By Catholic News Service
What God asks of people is too difficult and demanding to do without help from Jesus and Mary, Pope Francis said.
People need to lose themselves in the contemplation of Mary’s sweetness and Christ’s suffering in order to receive the grace necessary to live out God’s will, he said in his Sept. 12 morning homily at his residence in the Domus Sanctae Marthae.
What God asks of people “is not easy to live out: Love your enemies, do good to them, lend without expecting anything in return, turn the other cheek,” he said. “These are tough things, right?
“We, with our own strength, we can’t do it. We cannot do this. Only grace can do it in us,” a grace that comes from contemplating Christ, he said.
The only way to live the Gospel is “to only think of Jesus. If our heart, our mind is with Jesus — the triumphant, who was victorious over death, sin, the devil, everything — we can do what he asks us,” he said.
In the day’s readings, St. Paul, too, said in his Letter to the Colossians, “let the peace of Christ control your hearts” and “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”
Mary contemplated Christ through “the grace of gentleness, the grace of mildness,” he said. “We need sweetness from Our Lady today in order to understand these things that Jesus is asking of us.”
Pope Francis said people receive the grace they need by thinking in particular of Christ’s passion.
“Think of his meek silence: This will be where you make an effort. He will do the rest.”
“To be good Christians, contemplate the humanity of Jesus and suffering humanity,” he added.
