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February 25, 2014
T
he Valley Catholic
World NEws
Pope’s Lenten message:
Sacrifice key to reaping wealth
of God’s love, fighting misery
By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Courageously follow Jesus
in seeking out the poor and sinners, and in making
difficult sacrifices in order to help and heal others,
Pope Francis said.
Christians are called to confront the material, spiritual and moral destitution of “our brothers and sisters,
to touch it, to make it our own and to take practical
steps to alleviate it,” the pope said in his first message for Lent, which begins March
5 for Latin-rite Catholics.
Saving the world will not come about “with the right kind of human resources”
and token alms, but only “through the poverty of Christ,” who emptied himself of
the worldly and made the world rich with God’s love and mercy, he said.
The text of the pope’s message focused on the theme of Christ’s poverty, with
the title: “He became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich,” which
is from a verse from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians.
Pope Francis said he chose the passage to explore what St. Paul’s references to
poverty and charity mean for Christians today. There are many forms of poverty,
he said, like the material destitution that disfigures the face of humanity and the
moral destitution of being a slave to vice and sin.
But “there is only one real kind of poverty: not living as children of God and brothers
and sisters of Christ,” he said. “The Gospel is the real antidote to spiritual destitution.”
All Christians are called “to proclaim the liberating news that forgiveness for
sins is possible, that God is greater than our sinfulness, that he freely loves us at all
times and that we were made for communion and eternal life.”
Imitating Christ includes confronting the abuses, discrimination and violations
against human dignity which often cause the material poverty suffered by those
who lack the basic rights to food, water, work, development and “equal access to
education and healthcare,” he said.
Sometimes the unjust social conditions that rob people of their dignity lead to
moral destitution -- a kind of “impending suicide,” he said.
Think of how much pain is caused by people, especially the young, when they
turn to alcohol, drugs, gambling, porno ܘ\ H܈