Pope at Angelus: Only the little ones know how to welcome God’s love

By Lisa Zengarini

Greeting pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square for the Sunday Angelus, Pope Francis invited everyone to reflect on the prayer Jesus addresses to the Father in today’s Gospel, thanking the Lord for revealing all His works to “the little ones” who know how to welcome them (Mt 11:25).

He also called on all faithful to ask themselves whether they marvel, like children, at God's works around us, or if we just let them pass by.

Just before Jesus’ prayer, the Pope said, the Lord had recalled some of His works: "the blind receive their sight […] lepers are cleansed, […] the poor have the good news preached to them" (Mt 11:5), and ”revealed what this means, saying that these are the signs that God is at work in the world."

God's healing and saving love

The Gospel’s message is therefore clear, said the Pope:  “God reveals Himself by liberating and healing the human person, with a gratuitous love that saves.”

However, he explained, the greatness of God’s love and works is not understood by those “who presume to be great and who fabricate a god in their own image – powerful, inflexible, vindictive.”

"Those who are full of themselves, proud, concerned only about their own interests, convinced they do not need anyone, are not able to accept God as Father," said the Pope.

Jesus names the inhabitants of three rich cities of His times – Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum - who didn’t know how to welcome the great things of God.

Little ones able to welcome God's great works

The little ones, instead, know how to welcome them, and Jesus thanks the Father praising Him for “the simple people whose hearts are free from presumption and self-love” and “are open to God and allow themselves to be amazed at His works.”

This, Pope Francis remarked, “is the correct behaviour before God’s works”: to allow ourselves to be “impressed” by them so they can be developed in our lives "through many good deeds".

Good deeds that silently change the world

Concluding, Pope Francis invited the faithful to ask ourselves if, “in the deluge of news that overwhelms us today” we know how to “marvel like a child at the good that silently changes the world” and if we thank God each day for His works.