The poor and excluded welcome the Gospel, Pope says in Angelus address

October 13, 2014

Reflecting on the Gospel of the day (Mt. 22:1-14), Pope Francis devoted his October 12 Angelus address to the welcome that the Gospel receives among the poor and excluded.

“God is good to us,” the Pope said. “He freely offers us his friendship. He offers his joy, salvation. But so often we don’t welcome his gifts. We put our material preoccupations, our own interests, in first place.”

“The Gospel, rejected by some, finds a surprising welcome in so many hearts,” he continued. “The goodness of God does not have limits and does not discriminate against anyone. That's why the banquet of the gifts of the Lord is universal, universal for everyone. He gives everyone the possibility of responding to his invitation, to his call, to his path. No one has the right to feel privileged or to claim exclusivity.”

Pope Francis added:

All of this moves us to overcome the habit of placing ourselves comfortably at the center, as the leaders of the priests and Pharisees did. This shouldn't be done. We have to open ourselves to the peripheries, recognizing as well that the one at the margins, even the one rejected and despised by society, is the object of God's generosity. All of us are called to avoid reducing the Kingdom of God to within the limits of our "little church," our "tiny little church." That doesn't work. But rather to expand the Church to the dimensions of the Kingdom of God.

Within this there is a condition: to put on the wedding garment. That is, to give concrete testimony of concrete charity to God and to neighbor.

 

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Further information:

• Le parole del Papa alla recita dell’Angelus (Holy See Press Office)
• Angelus Address: The Response to God's Invitation (Zenit)
• Pope Angelus: The goodness of God knows no boundaries, does not discriminate (Vatican Radio)