POPE RECALLS SERMON ON MOUNT TO AFFIRM THAT JESUS IS DOOR TO ENTER INTO KINGDOM OF GOD

Vatican City, 22 April 2013 (VIS) – The reflection on Jesus as the “door” to enter into the Kingdom of God was the central theme of this morning's Mass celebrated by the Pope in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, at which the personnel of the Press Office of the Holy See and various technicians of Vatican Radio were in attendance.

The Holy Father recalled that in today's Gospel, which narrated the story of the Good Shepherd, Jesus asserted that: “whoever doesn't enter the sheepfold by the gate is not the shepherd. … He is a thief or a robber,” the Pope said, “someone seeking his own profit. ...There are also such people in the Christian community, who seek their own profit and, consciously or unconsciously, pretend to enter at the door. But they are thieves … because the steal Jesus' glory and seek their own. … They have not entered by the true door. … The true door is Jesus and whoever does not enter by this door errs.”

“How do we know that the true door is Jesus?” the pontiff asked. “Reading what the Beatitudes say, as they are told in St. Matthew: 'Be humble, be poor, be meek, be just' … When they give you another suggestion, don't listen to it. The door is always Jesus and whoever enters by that door is not mistaken. Jesus isn't only the door; He is the way, the path. There are many paths: some seems more advantageous for arriving but they are misleading. They are false.”

“Let us ask today for the grace to always knock at that door. … Sometimes we have problems doing so. But we don't have to go looking for other, easier doors. The door is Jesus, who doesn't disappoint, who doesn't deceive. He has given his life for us. And each of us has to say: 'You have given your life for me, open, please, that I might enter. Open, Lord, because I want to enter by 'this' door, not by that other,” Pope Francis concluded.