Pope Francis explained, during the Mass held at Casa Santa Marta this Friday, March 20, how to confess during the confinement decreed in many countries of the world by the Pandemics of Coronavirus Covid 19.
The Pontiff raised the problem with which many faithful are these days: if everyone must be locked at home, how to find a priest to confess?
"I know that many of you by Easter go to make the confession to meet you with God, but many will tell me:‘ Father, where can I find a priest, a confessor?, Because you cannot leave home and I want to make peace with the Lord. I want him to hug me, that my dad embraces me. How can I do if I can't find a priest?
The Pope pointed out that the answer is in the catechism. "It's very clear," he said. "If you can't find a priest to confess, talk to God, he is your Father. Tell him the truth:‘ Lord, I have done this, this, this. Forgiveness.
However, that spiritual confession, to be effective, must have a promise, explained the pontiff: confess with a priest as soon as possible.
That is, first ask God for forgiveness, and then promise him: "Then I will confess, but forgive me now."
Pope Francis assured that "at the moment you will return to the grace of God. You can approach yourself, as the catechism teaches us, to the forgiveness of God without having a priest close."
"Thought. It is the time. This is the right moment, the appropriate moment. An act of well done pain, and thus our soul will become white as snow," he insisted.
Go with the father
Pope Francis, in his homily commented on the first reading of the day, of the prophet Hosea. He explained that every time he listens to the phrase "come back, Israel, to Yahweh your God" "a song of 70 years that sang Carlo Buti and that in the Italian families in Buenos Aires it was heard with pleasure:‘ Torna Dal Tuo Papà, the Ninna Nanna Ancora Ti Canterà ’has been singing’ (‘He returns to your dad, that he will sing to you again.
"It is your dad who tells you to return. God is your dad. He is not a judge, it is your dad. He returns home, listens, come," said Pope Francis.
Also “that memory as a child immediately takes the father of Chapter 15 of Luke. The father who says he sees the son from afar. The son who had gone with all the money and had dwilled it. But if he sees him in the distance it is because he expected it. He went out to the terrace many times a day during, months, months, perhaps, waiting for the son. And he saw him in the distance. of God who speaks to you, especially in Lent.
The first reaction can be to say: “‘ No, Father, that I am ashamed to return because, you know, Father, I have done so much… ’What does the Lord say?:‘ I will return. I will heal his infidelity, I will love them gracefully; because my anger has left him, I will be like Rocío for Israel: He will flourish like the lily, and sink his roots as the Lebanon. ”
The Pope invited to return to God without fear: “Go back to your Father. He is the God of tenderness that will heal you. He will heal you of so many, as many wounds of life and of so many bad things that we have done. Every snow'".
God "is able to transform us, he is able to change his heart, but it is necessary to take the first step. Back. It is not to go to God, it is to return home."
"Lent always points towards the conversion of the heart, which in the Christian custom takes shape in the sacrament of confession. It is time to, I do not know if adjusting accounts, I do not like that, it is time to let God clean you, that God purifies you, that God embraces you."
Finally, the Pope pointed out that "it would be beautiful that today, in our ears, resonate this‘ return, return to your dad, return to your father. Wait and do a party. "
Next, the reading commented by Pope Francis:
Hosea 14: 2-10
2 Return, Israel, to Yahveh your God, because you have stumbled for your faults.
3 Take words with you, and return to Yahveh. Tell him: «Remove all guilt; Take what is good; And instead of steers we will offer our lips.
4 Assyria will not save us, we will not ride a horse, and we will not say "our God" to the work of our hands, oh you, in whom the orphan is compassion. "
5 - I will heal their infidelity, I will love them gracefully; Well, my anger has left him,
6 I will be as Rocío for Israel: He will bloom like lily, and sink his roots like Lebanon.
7 Its branches will be deployed, as the olive tree will be its splendor, and its fragrance like that of Lebanon.
8 They will sit back in my shadow; They will grow the wheat, they will bloom like the vine, their renown will be like that of Lebanon's wine.
9 Ephraim ... What still has with idols? I attend him and look at him. I am like an evergreen cypress, and thanks to me it is fruit.
10 Who is wise to understand these things, intelligent to know them?: What straight are the roads of Yahweh, for them the righteous walk, but the rebels in them stumble.
January 26, 2022