Pope Francis: Money, vanity and gossip divide communities

Vatican City, 21/04/2020.- "While money, vanity and gossip will always tear people apart and divide communities, the Holy Spirit is the master of harmony, he is capable of creating it, but it must be done within the heart of each individual and many things must change within us," said Pope Francis in his homily at the morning Mass celebrated at the Santa Marta Residence in the Vatican on April 21.

Pope Francis: use the time of silence and learn to listen.

At the beginning of the broadcast of the Holy Mass, which Pope Francis is now conducting live due to the Coronavirus epidemic, the Holy Father prayed first that people would use the time of silence induced by the pandemic in their lives to learn to listen.

There is a lot of silence in this period. You can even hear the silence, which can be something very different from what people are used to. May this silence teach us to listen, make us grow in our ability to listen.

Pope Francis: know how to receive the Holy Spirit.

Pope Francis also reflected on the beautiful intervention of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In this regard, he indicated: "Only with the humble submission of each individual to the Holy Spirit can he bring harmony to communities that suffer from division"

In his homily at Mass, the Pope reflected on the first reading of the day from the Acts of the Apostles, which describes the first community of Christians as being of "one heart and one mind," renouncing their possessions to meet the needs of all and living in harmony.

Being open to the Holy Spirit.

The first Christian community is a model that God lets people see so that they know what is possible if we are open to the Holy Spirit, if we are docile.

This is the ideal that we must achieve, but it is not easy, and, in fact, the early community soon succumbed to a series of internal divisions.

Many things can divide all kinds of communities, whether they are dioceses, parishes, priests or religious.

Pope Francis: Money, vanity and gossip divide communities.

But the three main things that the New Testament shows in dividing the early Christian communities are money, vanity and gossip.

1. Money.

Money divides, the love of money divides the community, divides the church. History has shown that whenever there have been doctrinal deviations in the Church, very often the reason behind them has been money.

That is why poverty is the mother of the community, poverty is the wall that protects the community.

2. Vanity.

Vanity can be seen in the people who show their lifestyle, the way they dress, including the choice of liturgical vestments, and in their desire to always appear better than others.

Vanity makes you act like a peacock and wherever there is a peacock, there is always division.

3. Gossip.

Finally, the third thing that always divides a community is gossip. This urge to speak ill of others or to cut others up comes from the devil.

However, the Holy Spirit always comes with his power to save us from this worldliness of money, vanity and gossip, because the Spirit is not the world, but against the world. He is capable of doing miracles..

Let us ask the Lord for this docility to the Spirit so that he may transform us and our communities, so that they may advance in the kind of harmony that Jesus desires for a Christian community