CNS photo/Paul Haring

VATICAN CITY (CNS)—God always loves and generously gives first before asking for fidelity to his commandments—which are the words of a loving father showing people the right way to live, Pope Francis said.

“Christian life is above all the grateful response to a generous father,” not a forced, joyless compliance to a series of obligations, the pope said June 27 at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square. It was the last general audience before a suspension for the month of July.

Before riding through the square in his popemobile, greeting visitors, the pope met with the ill and infirm, who were seated in the air-conditioned Paul VI audience hall.

Greeting the crowd, he told a group on pilgrimage to Rome offered by Deaf Catholic Youth Initiative for the Americas that every pope and “the Lord has a special place in his heart for whoever has any kind of disability.”

He also greeted representatives of the Special Olympics and lit a torch from the Special Olympics flame.

Later, the pope continued his new series of audience talks on the Ten Commandments by reflecting on how God first liberated his people from slavery in Egypt, then revealed the commandments to Moses.

“God never asks without giving first. Never. He saves first, then asks” for fidelity to his commandments, which are the “loving words of a father” to his children so they can journey on the right path through life.

This is “the secret” to the Christian approach, which is Jesus’ approach—to know one is loved by a father and to love others in turn, the pope said. Jesus “doesn’t start with himself, but with the father,” he added.

Projects or efforts fail when they are rooted in selfishness, not in “gratitude” to the Lord, the pope said.

The foundation of everything a Christian does isn’t based on a sense of obligation: “I must do this, this, this …” he said.

“No. The foundation of this duty is the love of God, the father, who gives first and then commands,” he said; it’s a situation based on a relationship and experience between father and child.

“To put the law before the relationship does not help the journey of faith. How can a young person want to be Christian if we start with obligations, tasks, consistency and not with liberation?”

“To be Christian is a journey of liberation. The commandments liberate you from your own self-centeredness, and they liberate you because there is God’s love to carry you forward.”

Christian formation is not about willpower, but about opening one’s arms to salvation and letting oneself be loved, he said.

Pope Francis said it is important for people to ask, “How many beautiful things has God done for me?” Recognizing all gifts “liberates us,” he said.

But it can also happen, he said, that people have not had this liberating experience, and still live their faith from a sense of obligation—a spirituality that is lived “slavelike” not like sons and daughters of God.

When this is the case, the pope said, people must cry out to God for their own exodus.

“We are not saved by ourselves, but we can start with a cry for help, ‘Lord, save me. Lord, teach me the way. Lord, caress me. Lord, give me a little joy.’”