‘Three ways of living life’. Pope Francis outlined these during Mass at Santa Marta on Friday 29 May, drawing on the liturgical passage from the Gospel of Mark (11:11–25), which presents three attitudes linked to three figures: that of the ‘fig tree’, that of the ‘money-changers in the temple’ and that of the ‘man of faith’.
Already on Thursday 28, during the morning celebration, Pope Francis had outlined the characteristics of three types of Jesus’ disciples — those “who did not hear the blind man’s cry for help”, those who “drove people away from Jesus” and, finally, “those who helped people in need to go to Jesus” — inviting everyone to examine their consciences to identify the group with which they could identify. The following day, he returned to a similar reflection, inspired by the Gospel passage from Mark.
The fig tree, he explained in this regard, “represents barrenness, that is, a barren life, incapable of giving anything”. A life, in other words, that bears no fruit, “incapable of doing good”, because that sort of person “lives for themselves; complacent, selfish”, and does not want “problems”. In the Gospel passage, Jesus curses the fig tree because it is barren, “because it did not do its part to bear fruit”, thus becoming the symbol of “the person who does nothing to help, who always lives for themselves, so that they lack nothing”.
Such people, the Pope continued, eventually “become neurotic”. And “Jesus condemns the spiritual barrenness, the spiritual selfishness” of those who think: “I live for myself: let nothing be lacking for me, let others fend for themselves!”
Then there is a second “way of living life”, and that is that of “the exploiters, the money-changers in the temple”. They “even exploit God’s holy place to do business: they exchange coins, sell animals for sacrifice, and even have a sort of trade union amongst themselves to defend themselves”. A practice “not only tolerated, but also permitted by the priests of the temple”. To make this clearer, the Pontiff recalled another ‘very ugly’ scene from the Bible, which describes ‘those who turn religion into a business’: it is the story of the priest whose sons ‘urged people to make offerings and earned a great deal, even from the poor’. For these, ‘Jesus does not mince his words’ and says to the merchants in the temple: ‘ My house shall be called a house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves!’ A harsh passage, on which the Pope dwelled: people ‘went on pilgrimage there to ask for the Lord’s blessing, to make a sacrifice’ and right there ‘those people were exploited’; the priests ‘did not teach them to pray, did not give them catechesis… . It was a den of thieves’. They were not interested in whether there was true devotion: ‘pay up, come in…’. They performed the rites ‘without true devotion’. From this, Francis moved on to invite reflection: ‘I don’t know if it would do us good to consider whether something like this is happening somewhere among us’: that is, ‘using God’s things for one’s own profit’.
Finally, there is a third type, and that is ‘what Jesus recommends, namely the life of faith’. To describe it, the Pontiff returned to the reading from the Gospel of Mark and recalled how, when the disciples saw the fig tree withered right down to its roots ‘because Jesus had cursed it’, Peter said to him: ‘Master, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!’ And Jesus, seizing the opportunity to point out the right ‘way of life’, replied: ‘Have faith in God. If anyone were to say to this mountain, “Be lifted up and thrown into the sea”, without doubting in his heart, but believing that what he says will happen, it will happen. Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.’ So, the Pope explained, ‘exactly what we ask for in faith will happen: this is the way of life of faith.’
Someone might ask: ‘Father, what must I do for this?’ For Francis, the answer is simple: “Ask the Lord to help you do good things, but with faith.” Simple, but with “one condition” dictated by Jesus himself: “When you begin to pray asking for this, if you have anything against anyone, forgive them. It is the only condition, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your sins.”
Living, therefore, “the faith to help others, to draw closer to God”, the faith “that works miracles”, is the third way of life suggested. The Pontiff has therefore summarised the three possible paths open to the Christian: the first is that of the ‘barren person’ who does not wish to ‘bear fruit in life’ and spends ‘a comfortable, peaceful, trouble-free life and then departs’: the way of those who do not bother to do good. Then there are those “who exploit others, even in the house of God; the exploiters, the temple profiteers”, those whom Jesus “drives out” with a whip. Finally, there is the way of those who have “trust in God” and know that what they ask of the Lord in faith “will come to pass”. And it is precisely this “that Jesus advises us: the way of Jesus”, which can be followed on one condition alone: “forgive, forgive others, so that your Father may forgive you for so many things”.
In conclusion, the Pope invited everyone to ask the Lord — “in the sacrifice of the Eucharist” — to teach “each one of us, the Church”, never to fall “into sterility and profiteering”.
[Pope Francis, homily at Santa Marta, L’Osservatore Romano 30.05.15]