The Magi were changed by their encounter with Jesus, Pope Francis said before praying the midday Angelus on the feast of Epiphany. The encounter with God doesn’t hold them back, but on the contrary, impels them to “return to their country, to tell what they saw and the joy they felt.”
The experience of knowing God, remarked Pope Francis, “does not block us, but frees us; it does not imprison us, but it puts us back on the road…”
The Gospel passage, he emphasized, “contains a detail which prompts our reflection. At the end of the story, it is said that the Magi were “warned in a dream not to return to Herod, and by another route they returned to their country.”
Every experience of meeting Jesus, reflected the Holy Father, “leads us to take different paths, because from Him comes a good force that heals the heart and detaches us from evil.”
“The true God does not hold us back, nor does He let Himself be held back by us: He opens to us ways of novelty and freedom.”
Following the recitation of the Marian prayer, Pope Francis offered a special greeting for those involved in the historical-folkloristic procession, on the avenue leading to the Vatican and inspired by the traditions of the Epiphany.
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And today we celebrate...