When Christianity becomes an ideology rather than a faith based on a relationship with God, its followers become proud and rigid, Pope Francis said. When Christianity becomes an ideology, "Jesus isn't there, nor is his tenderness, love and meekness. And ideologies are always rigid, always," the pope said in a homily at his early morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives. According to a Vatican Radio report on the homily, Pope Francis said that ideological Christians are "rigid, moralists, ethicists, but without goodness. When a Christian becomes a disciple of an ideology, he has lost his faith; he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, but of this way of thinking," the pope said. Pope Francis was commenting on the day's Gospel reading from Luke (11:47-54) in which Jesus admonishes the scribes and Pharisees for trying to control the faith rather than live it and share it with others. The Gospel reading included the line: "Woe to you, scholars of the law! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter."
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...