Cling to the Lord, not horoscopes, fortunetellers, pope says

IMAGE: CNS photo/Akhtar Soomro, EPA

By Junno Arocho Esteves

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When passing through the storm of
life’s difficult moments, Christians must latch on to Christ and not the false sense of security
offered by psychics and soothsayers, Pope Francis said.

Speaking to pilgrims before reciting the Angelus Aug. 13,
Pope Francis talked about the
day’s Gospel passage, which recounts the story of Jesus walking on water. Jesus
tells St. Peter to come to him, but his lack of faith when walking on the water
toward Jesus during a storm leads to him slowly to start sinking in the sea.

Christians today, Pope Francis said, also can doubt the assurance of Christ’s
presence when confronting life’s “turbulent and hostile waters.”

“When we do not cling to the word of the Lord, but
consult horoscopes and fortunetellers to have more security, we begin to
sink,” the pope said.

Although most Romans escape the city during the summer,
hundreds of pilgrims still made their way to St. Peter’s Square, waving banners
and flags while cheering loudly as the pope appeared in the window of the
Apostolic Palace.

Pope Francis said the Sunday Gospel reading invites all Christians to reflect on
their faith “both as individuals and as an ecclesial community, even the
faith of all us here today in the square.”

St.
Peter’s request that Jesus call him, his moment of doubt and his subsequent cry for
Jesus to save him, the
pope said, “resembles our desire to feel close to the Lord, but
also the fear and anguish that accompanies the most difficult moments of our
life and of our communities, marked by internal frailty and external
difficulty.”

“Today’s Gospel reminds us that faith in the Lord and
in his word doesn’t open a path where everything is easy and calm; it doesn’t take away life’s
storms,” the pope said. “Faith gives us the security of a presence,
Jesus’ presence, which
pushes us to overcome existential storms, and the assurance of a hand that grabs us to help us face
the difficulties, showing us the way even when it is dark.”

The image of the boat in troubled waters, he added, also can represent the
church, which
throughout history
has faced storms that “threaten to overwhelm her.”

What
saves the church is not “courage or the quality of its members,” but rather
“faith in Christ and his word.”

“In short, faith is not an escape from life’s problems
but sustains it along the
journey and gives it meaning,” Pope Francis said.

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Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju.

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