Here, said the Pope, they "arrive at a pile of prescriptions and for them this is salvation: they have lost the key to intelligence which, in this case, is the gratuitousness of salvation". In reality, "the law is a response to God's gratuitous love: it is He who has taken the initiative to save us, and because you have loved me so much, I try to go your way, the way you have shown me", in a word "I fulfil the law". But 'it is a response' because 'the law, always, is a response and when one forgets the gratuitousness of salvation one falls, one loses the key to the intelligence of salvation history'.
And, again, the Pontiff relaunched, those people "have lost the key to intelligence because they have lost the sense of God's closeness: for them God is the one who made the law" but "this is not the God of revelation". In reality "the God of revelation is God who began to walk with us from Abraham to Jesus Christ: God who walks with his people". Therefore "when we lose this close relationship with the Lord, we fall into this obtuse mentality that believes in the self-sufficiency of salvation through the fulfilment of the law".
Precisely "today's Gospel passage points out two of them", was the reply. "First of all the closure: 'You did not enter, and those who wanted to enter, you prevented'". Yes, 'these people closed the door to the faithful and the faithful did not understand: they, all their moral theology, made intellectual mannerism, but it did not reach the people and, with that, they drove people away. No, this is not the religion I wanted: this is not the truth of salvation in Jesus Christ'. And, the Pontiff pointed out, "I am thinking here of the responsibility we pastors have: when we pastors lose or take away the key to intelligence, we close the door to ourselves and to others".
[Pope Francis, St. Martha, in L'Osservatore Romano 20/10/2017]
