During his homily at Casa Santa Marta, the pope explained that we have been chosen and God now asks to make a covenant with Him, “a covenant of faithfulness.”
POPE FRANCIS
Each of us is chosen. No one chooses to be a Christian, out of all the possibilities the religious “market” offers. Each person is chosen. We are Christians because we were chosen. In this election, there is a promise. There is a promise of hope. The sign is fruitfulness.
He also said baptism isn't enough to make one a Christian. He spoke of the need to say yes to God's proposal, to trust in His promise and live in covenant with Him.
SUMMARY OF POPE'S HOMILY
(Source: Vatican News)
“Christ is the mediator of the new Covenant so that, through His death, those who have been called may receive the eternal inheritance that has been promised them,” he said. “The Lord has made us a promise and now He asks us to enter into a Covenant, a Covenant of faithfulness,” he said.
We are Christians, Pope Francis explained, “because we are elected, chosen by God, and we have received a promise of fruitfulness, to which we must respond with fidelity to the Covenant.”
“A Christian isn't someone who can just show their baptismal certificate. A certificate of baptism is just a piece of paper. You are a Christian if you say ‘yes’ to the election of the Lord, if you follow the promise that the Lord has made to you and if you live the Covenant with God. This is the Christian life,” he said. The Lord, he reminded the faithful, always remembers His Covenant, and never forgets His people.
“He only forgets in one case, when He forgives sins. After forgiving He loses his memory, He doesn't remember those sins. In other cases, God doesn't forget. His faithfulness is memory. His faithfulness to His people. His faithfulness to Abraham is the memory of the promises He made,” said the pope.
The pope recalled that when the Lord told Abraham He had chosen him to be “the father of a multitude of nations,” He also told him to be fruitful in faith “which will flourish in good works,” and to “observe the Covenant with me.”
Pope Francis concluded saying “This is the revelation that the Word of God gives us today about our Christian existence. Let it be like that of our Father: conscious of being chosen, joyful in going towards a promise and faithful in making the Covenant.”
Daniel Díaz Vizzi
Translation: Claudia Torres
