Greg Daly
True preaching is a ‘slap’, something startling and challenging, rather than comforting and reassuring, Pope Francis said in this morning’s homily at Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican.
Noting that St Paul did not soften his proclamation of the Faith with half-truths, the Pope said that preaching “cannot be lukewarm”.
“Preaching always – let me say this – ‘slaps’, it is a slap, a slap that moves you and carries you forward,” he said.
Recalling the courage of St Paul and Timothy in their preaching, he said there was an apparent ‘madness’ to what they said, and that this should be an embraced, rather than diluted or disguised.
“It is madness, because to say that God became man and then was crucified and then resurrected…In preaching faith there is always a ‘shred of madness’. And temptation is that false common sense, that mediocrity, ‘But, no, let’s not joke…’, the lukewarm faith,” he said.
The Pontiff also said the love of the early Christians for each other and for those who needed their help was clear, and drew people to the Faith in a way that acrimonious gossip and criticism could never do.
Recalling how those who witnessed the Christianity in action of the first disciples said “But the way they love each other,” he contrasted this to modern Christians where “one goes to some parishes and hears, what this one says about that one, and that one about this one…. Instead of thinking about how much the love each other, it makes you say, ‘But the way they “skin” each other’”.
Asking how the Faith can ever be transmitted in a “gossip-polluted air, full of slander”, he said it is visible testimony of Christian goodness that promotes the Faith, where people see Christians who do no gossip or slander, who do charity work and visit the sick, and then wonder why.
“And through witness comes the question of why faith is transmitted: because he or she has faith, because it follows the traces of Jesus,” he said.