VATICAN CITY — God is in love with you in a way that not even the greatest of theologians can ever fully explain, Pope Francis said during his homily this morning at Holy Mass in the Chapel of Santa Marta.
Taking his cue from the first reading from the prophet Isaiah, where the Lord says he is “about to create new heavens and new earth,” Pope Francis pointed out that God’s second creation is even more beautiful than the first, since “when the Lord refashions the world ruined by sin, he does so in Jesus Christ.”
And as God renews all things, the Pope said, he manifests his immense joy.
“We find that the Lord has so much enthusiasm: he speaks of joy and says ‘I will exult in my people’. The Lord thinks of what He will do and of how He will rejoice with His people. It’s almost as if he has a dream. He has a dream. His dream is about us. ‘Oh, how beautiful it will be when we are all together, when this and that person will walk with me… then I will exult!’ To offer you an example that can help us better to understand: it’s like when a young man or a young lady thinks of their beloved: ‘when we will be together, when we marry…’. It is God’s dream.”
“God thinks of each of us and loves each of us,” the Pope continued. “He ‘dreams’ about us. He dreams of how He will rejoice with us. That is why the Lord desires to ‘recreate’ us, He wants to renew our hearts so that joy may triumph.”
“Have you thought about it?” he asked. “The Lord dreams of me! He thinks of me! I am in the Lord’s mind and in His heart! The Lord can change my life. And he has many plans: ‘We will build houses and plant vineyards, we will share our meals’… these are the dreams of someone who is in love…. Thus we can see that the Lord is in love with his people.”
Pope Francis then added: “And when he says to his people: ‘I haven’t chosen you because you are the strongest, the biggest, the most powerful. I have chosen you because you are the smallest of them all. You could add: the most miserable. This is whom I have chosen’. This is love.”
God “is in love with us,” the Pope repeated, as he commented on today’s Gospel, which tells of the miraculous healing of the Royal official’s son.
“I don’t think a theologian exists who can explain this: it is impossible to explain. We can only think about it, we can feel, we can cry with joy. The Lord can change us.”
“What must I do?” the Pope asked. “Believe. I must believe that the Lord can change me, and that He has the power to do so. Just like the man in the Gospel whose son was sick. ‘Sir, come down before my child dies’. ‘You may go [Jesus said to him]. Your son will live!’ The man believed in the words of Jesus and set off. He believed. He believed that Jesus had the power to change his child, the health of his child. And he won.”
The Pope concluded his daily homily, saying: “Having faith means making space for God’s love, making space for his power, for God’s power. Not for the power of a powerful person, but for the power of one who loves me, who is in love with me and who wants to rejoice with me. This is faith. This is believing: making space for the Lord so that he can come and change me.”
And today we celebrate...