“The strength of faith has overcome the world!” the Pope exclaimed during his Jan. 9 homily, “Our faith can do everything! It is victory!”
During his daily Mass Pope Francis spoke on the virtue of faith, stating that all things are possible with this virtue as long as we both confess our Faith, and entrust ourselves to God.
“The strength of faith has overcome the world!” the Pope exclaimed during his Jan. 9 homily, “Our faith can do everything! It is victory!”
Pope Francis concentrated his homily, given to those present in the chapel of the Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse, on the day’s first reading taken from the First Letter of St. John in which the apostle describes how the true victor is the Christian who is faithful.
“Faith makes all things possible,” but we must place our trust in God, stated the Pope, explaining that authentic faith must be not be something partial, but complete, and is expressed by abiding in God, who is love.
“Whoever abides in God, whoever is begotten by God, whoever abides in love, has victory over the world,” noted the Pontiff, “and this victory is our faith – on our part, it is the faith.”
“On God’s part, (it is) the Holy Spirit who makes this (abiding, this victory) possible through faith…it is powerful!”
Acknowledging that often “the Church is full of defeated Christians who do not believe in this, that faith is the victory,” Pope Francis reflected that it would be “beautiful” to repeat to ourselves the power of faith, “because if you do not live this faith, there is defeat, the world wins, the prince of this world.”
Recalling the praise which Jesus gave regarding the faith of the hemorrhagic woman, the Canaanite woman, and the man who was blind from birth in the Gospels, the Pope highlighted how even faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains.
“This faith,” observed the Pontiff “affirms and requires of us two attitudes: confessing and trusting.”