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Fr. James Martin, SJ. Credit: Kerry Weber via Wikipedia cc 4.0 | Pope Francis. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA. / null

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Pope Francis received Father James Martin, SJ, in a private audience in the apostolic … […]

Vatican City, Feb 8, 2018 / 10:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his daily homily Thursday Pope Francis drew a distinction between the biblical figures of David and his son Solomon, saying that, like David, sinners who repent are still able to become saints, but the corrupt will not achieve holiness.

“David was a saint. He was a sinner. A sinner, and he became a saint. Solomon was rejected because he was corrupt,” the Pope said Feb. 8, adding that “someone who is corrupt cannot become a saint.”

Speaking from the small chapel inside the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse where he lives, the Pope centered his reflection on the day’s first reading from the First Book of Kings, which recounted how God became angry with Solomon for worshiping false gods that his wives believed in.

In the reading, God told Solomon that he would “deprive you of the kingdom.” However, for the sake of David’s righteousness, God said he would take it from Solomon’s son instead, leaving him only a small portion of his kingdom.

The reading recounted something “a bit strange,” Francis said, because God took away the kingdom from Solomon, but didn’t say whether he had committed any major sins. However, from scripture we know that David had difficulties and was a sinner.

Despite this fact, David is a saint, while Solomon – who at the beginning of his reign had been praised by God for seeking wisdom rather than riches – was condemned because his heart had “turned away from the Lord.”

This can be explained, Francis said, by the fact that David, knowing he had sinned, asked for forgiveness, whereas Solomon was praised throughout the world, but never recognized his fault when he distanced himself from the Lord and followed false gods.

“The heart of Solomon was not entirely with the Lord, his God, as the heart of David, his father, had been.”

Francis said the problem comes from a “weakness of heart,” which, he said isn’t like a typical sin that is recognized “immediately” after being committed. Rather, this sort of weakness, he said, is more subtle, and is “a slow journey that slides along step by step, step by step, step by step.”

“Solomon, adorned in his glory, in his fame, began to take this road,” he said, explaining that “the clarity of a sin is better than weakness of the heart.”

Despite being praised for his wisdom, “the great king Solomon wound up corrupted: serenely corrupt, because his heart was weakened,” the Pope said, adding that the same danger exists for every Christian.

A man or woman with a weak heart is “defeated,” he said, and “this is the process of many Christians, of many of us.”

While many people might be able to say “No, I haven’t committed grave sins,” Francis countered, asking “how is your heart? Is it strong? Does it stay faithful to the Lord, or does is it slowly sliding away?”

This subtle sliding away can happen to anyone, he said, saying the remedy to ensure this doesn’t happen is to always be “watchful” and vigilant.

“Guard your heart. Be watchful. Every day, be careful about what is happening in your heart,” he said, explaining that a person becomes corrupt “by following the path of weakness of the heart.”

Pope Francis closed his reflection telling the congregation to “guard your heart at all times” and to ask themselves how their relationship with the Lord is going, urging them to “enjoy the beauty and the joy of fidelity.”

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Vatican City, Oct 4, 2017 / 03:51 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis said true Christians aren’t sad or gloomy, but have the specific task of being bearers of hope not only with their words, but with actions as simple as a smile or an act of charity.

In his Oct. 4 general audience, the Pope said it’s encouraging to know that the’ disciples “are announcers of Jesus’ resurrection not only in word, but with facts and with the testimony of their life!”

Jesus, he said, “doesn’t want disciples capable only of repeating learned and memorized formulas. He wants witnesses: people who spread hope with their way of welcoming, smiling and loving.”

The most important part loving, he said, “because the strength of the resurrection renders Christians capable of loving even when love seems to have lost it’s meaning.”

For Christians, there is a “more” to existence that can’t be explained simply with the strength of spirit or a great amount of optimism. Rather, believers are people that seem to have a “piece of heaven” with them, and who are accompanied “by a presence that no one can even intuit.”

Pope Francis spoke to pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square, continuing his catechesis on Christian hope. This week, he spoke of the need to have “missionaries of hope,” noting that the call for such witnesses is key in the month of October, which is traditionally dedicated to mission.

A Christian, the Pope said, not “a prophet of misfortune,” but rather, their task entails announcing Jesus, “who died out of love and who God resurrected on the morning of Easter.”

“This is the nucleus of our Christian faith,” he said, explaining that if the Gospels had stopped at the the crucifixion and tomb, “the story of this prophet would add itself to the many biographies of heroic personalities that often have spent their lives for an ideal.”

In this case, the Gospel would simply become “an edifying and consoling book,” but it would in no way “be an announcement of hope.”

However, the Gospels go beyond the tomb, Francis said, explaining that “it is precisely this last part that transforms our lives.”

Although everything seemed hopeless after Jesus’ death, with some disciples already beginning to leave Jerusalem, Jesus rose. And this “unexpected fact” completely “overturns and subverts the heart of the disciples.”

Christians, then, are called to spread this news in the world and “open spaces for salvation, like regenerative cells capable of restoring vigor to those seem lost forever.”

True Christians, Pope Francis said, are “not sad and angry, but convinced by the strength of the resurrection, that no evil is infinite, no night without end, no man is definitively in wrong, no hate is invincible from love.”

But while there is joy that comes from announcing the Gospel, disciples at times have had to “pay a dear price” for their hope, Francis said, and pointed to the many Christians who “have not abandoned their people” in times of persecution.

“They have stayed there, where tomorrow isn’t certain, where they couldn’t have plans of any sort, (but) they stayed hoping in God.”

Referring, as he often does, to the many modern martyrs who give their lives for Christ, the Pope said their fidelity proves that “injustice does not have the final word in life.”

“In Christ Risen we can continue to hope,” he said, noting that while men and women who have a certain reason to live are able to resist more than others in times of difficulty, “those who have Christ at their side truly no longer fear anything.”

“Because of this Christians are never easy and accommodating men,” he said, stressing that “their meekness must not be confused with a sense of insecurity or of submissiveness.”

And this, he said, “is why the Christian is a missionary of hope. Not by their merit, but thanks to Jesus, the grain of wheat who, fallen to the earth, died and brought much fruit.”

At the end of the audience, just before leading pilgrims in the Our Father, Pope Francis announced that a special meeting will be held March 19-24 with youth from all over the world in order to prepare for the 2018 Synod of Bishops on “Young People, Faith and the Discernment of Vocation.”

Youth who will attend the conference will also include non-believers and non-Catholics, whether they come from other Christian traditions, other faiths entirely. Conclusions of the discussion will be given to synod participants to take into consideration during the discussion.

In preparing for the synod, “the Church wants to listen to the voices, feelings, faith and even doubts and critiques of the youth,” Pope Francis said, which is why the March meeting will gather such a vast panorama of participants, and why, ultimately, their reflections will be taken into consideration during the synod itself.

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