His Holiness Pope Francis invited Christians to be generous towards the poor, saying a charitable attitude opens the heart and helps us to be kinder. He also warned that the enemy of generosity is consumerism, where we buy more than we need. His Holiness Pope said there are many places in the Gospels in which Jesus contrasts the rich and the poor. He said we can think of Jesus’ comment to the rich young man: “It will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 19:23). The Pontiff said some would call Christ “a communist”. “The Lord, when he said these things, knew that behind riches there always lurks the evil spirit: the spirit of the world,” he said. But, the Pope noted, Jesus also said: “No one can serve two masters” (Mt 6:24).
As reported by Vatican news, His Holiness Pope Francis remarked that “In the day’s Gospel (Lk 21:1-4), the wealthy “who were putting their offerings in the treasury” are contrasted with the poor widow “who put in two small coins”. The Pontiff said the rich in this episode “are not evil” but “are good people who go to the Temple and make their offering.” “Widows, orphans, migrants, and foreigners were the poorest people in Israel,” he said. The widow “had offered her whole livelihood”, because she trusted in the Lord. “She gives everything,” the Pope said, “because the Lord is greater than all else. The message of this Gospel passage is an invitation to generosity.”
Finally, His Holiness Pope Francis invited the faithful to be generous and to start by inspecting our houses to discover “what we don’t need and could be useful for someone else.” We should ask God, he said, “to free us” from that dangerous disease of consumerism, which makes us slaves and creates dependence on spending money. “Let us ask the Lord for the grace of being generous, so that our hearts may be opened and we may become kinder.”
