Pope Francis: Salvation is not for sale

Pope Francis has urged Christians not to lose the capacity to feel loved. In his homily during Mass at Casa Santa Marta on Tuesday, the Holy Father said that while it is possible to regain a lost capacity to love, if one no longer is able feel loved, all is lost.

Reflecting on the reading from the Gospel of Luke in which Jesus says: "Blessed are those who will take food in the Kingdom of God" the Pope explained that the Lord asks us to open our doors to those who cannot reciprocate.

The parable tells of a man who gave a great dinner to which he invited many. But when the time for the dinner came, those who had been invited declined the invitation because they were taken by their own interests which seemed to them more important than the invitation itself.

They were asking themselves, the Pope commented, what benefit they could get out of the dinner, just like that man who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God. They were so concerned with their own interests, the Pope said they were "incapable of understanding the gratuity of the invitation."

And warning the faithful against this kind of attitude the Pope said: "if you do not understand the gratuity of God's invitation, you do not understand anything."

He explained that the only price God asks one to pay is that of being needy, in body and in soul: one must be in need of love.

He remarked on the two different attitudes: on the one hand the Lord who asks for nothing in return and tells the servant to invite the poor, the crippled, the good and the bad: "this gratuitousness has no limits, God receives all."

On the other hand, he said, the attitude of those who had been invited but who did not understand, like the elder brother of prodigal son who does not want to attend the banquet arranged by his father because "he does not understand."

"He spent all his money, he wasted his inheritance in vices and sins, and you celebrate his homecoming? I am a practicing Catholic, I go to Mass every Sunday and carry out my duties and you do nothing for me? He does not understand the gratuity of salvation" he said.
Salvation, the Pope reiterated, is free: "It is God's gift to which one responds with another gift, the gift of one's heart."

The Lord, he said, does not ask for anything in return, only love and fidelity. Salvation is not for sale, one simply has to accept the invitation to His banquet, thus: "Blessed are those who will take food in the Kingdom of God" - This is Salvation.

Those, who do not want to take part in the banquet have lost the capacity to feel that they are loved. "When one loses - not the capacity to love because that is something that can be recuperated - but the capacity to feel loved there is no hope and all is lost" he said.

It reminds us, Pope Francis concluded, of the writing on the gate to Dante's inferno 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here' - we must think of this and of the Lord who wants His home to be filled: "Let us ask the Lord to save us from losing the ability to feel loved."