God always respects our freedom, says Pope

God always respects human freedom and never compels anybody into a connection with him. That was the message of Pope Benedict XVI in his midday Angelus address July 10.

“God does not force us to consider in Him, but draws us to Himself throughout the truth and goodness of his incarnate Son. Love, in fact, always respects freedom,” Pope Benedict said from the balcony of his summer house at Castel Gandolfo, 15 miles southeast of Rome.

The Pope based his end upon the story told by Jesus in today’s Gospel reading: the parable of the sower who plants seed with different degrees of success.

He said that for Jesus the allegory was “autobiographical” because “it reflects the experience of Jesus himself and of his preaching” as “different effects are achieved depending on the kind of reception given to the announcement.”

Pope Benedict then attempted to answer the question consequently raised by the apostles: why does Jesus speak in parables?

The Pope said that Jesus makes a dissimilarity between the general crowd and the apostles.

“To those who have already determined for him, he can speak openly of the Kingdom of God” while to others he must speak in metaphor “to kindle precisely the decision, the conversion of heart” needed. Jesus' parables “require effort to interpret, challenging one’s aptitude but also one’s freedom.”

“After all,” said the Pope, “the real ‘Parable’ of God is Jesus himself, his person, under the form of his humanity, hiding and yet enlightening the same deity.” In this way “God does not strength us to believe in Him, but draws us to himself through the truth and goodness of his incarnate Son.”

Love within Trinity overflows into forgiveness for man, Pope says

The love that exists inside the Holy Trinity overflows into love and forgiveness for man, as shown by Christ’s death on the cross. That was the message of Pope Benedict XVI in his Trinity Sunday sermon throughout his visit to the tiny European state of San Marino June 19.

“So, in the mystery of the cross, there are three Divine Persons,” he told the 25,000 strong congregation at the country’s Serravalle Stadium.

“The Father, who gave his only begotten Son for the deliverance of the world, the Son, who carries out the will of the Father to the very end and the Holy Spirit - poured out by Jesus at the instant of his death - who comes to render us participants in divine life, to transform our lives, so that our lives are lively by divine love.”

San Marino is located in the north-eastern part of the Italian peninsula and is one of just three independent states in the world to be totally surrounded by another country, in this case Italy. It has a population of only 30,000. Pope John Paul II also visited San Marino back in 1982. That visit was for just one day, as is Pope Benedict’s today.

Pope points to Moses as model of intercessory prayer

Pope Benedict XVI said at the June 1 general audience that intercessory prayer helps us to grow in deeper information of God and his mercy and makes us more competent of loving others in a self-sacrificial way.

Drawing upon the life of Moses, the Pope told pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square that the Old Testament prophet not only led his people out of slavery in Egypt but also gave them and us an example of how to offer prayers of intervention.

“Even when the people at Sinai, asked Aaron to make the golden calf, Moses prays, and this is very symbolic of his role as intercessor.”

The Pope recognized various aspects of the intercessory prayer of Moses we can learn from. The first he named was fasting, just as Moses did for 40 days on Mount Sinai.

“The act of eating, in fact, involves taking the food that sustains us, so fasting, giving up food is, in this case, of religious significance: it is a way to point out that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that profits from the mouth of the Lord.”