Jesus isn’t a fairytale, and you know that! Pope calls us back to our certainties

We have experienced the Lord in our lives, and we can't let fear or compromise make us forget that, he says in morning homily

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Today during morning Mass in his residence, the Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis spoke of the consequences of “Easter joy.” One of them, he said, is realism.

The Apostles after the Resurrection spoke of concrete things, he said, and “not of fairytales.”

In the same way, just as the Apostles had “seen and touched” Jesus, Francis said, “each of us has experienced Jesus in our lives.”

“It often happens that sins, compromises, or fears make us forget this first encounter, the one that changed our lives. We carry a memory with us that gets watered down to make us ‘rose-water’ Christians: watered-down and superficial. We must ask for the grace of the Holy Spirit of realism. Jesus has entered into my life and my heart. So has the Holy Spirit. I may have forgotten it, but the grace of the first encounter lives on in me.”

Pope Francis prayed for the joy that comes with the Holy Spirit’s presence after Easter.

“Let us pray for it for one another: the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit: the joy of Easter obedience, the joy of Easter witness, and the joy of Easter realism.”