Pope's Morning Homily: 'One Can Gain Everything and Still Be a Failure"

Calls on Christians to Stop and Reflect on Their Path in Life During Morning Mass

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Christians are faced with one choice: to choose the path that leads either to life or death. This was Pope Francis’ reflection today during his morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta.

The Holy Father drew his homily from the first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, in which Moses tells the people of Israel: “Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today […] you will live and grow numerous.”

According to Vatican Radio, the Pope said that Christians are faced with that same choice in their daily lives. However, this choice is not easy for many. Some, he said, find it easier to “become servants of ‘other gods.'”

“To choose between God and other gods: those who do not have the power to give us anything, only little things that passes,” he said. “And it is not easy to choose, we always have this habit of going a bit where the people go, a bit like everyone else. Like everyone.”

“Today the Church tells us: ‘But, stop! Stop and choose.’ It is good advice. And today it would do us well to stop and during the day to think a bit: what is my lifestyle like? Which path am I walking on?”

‘Gaining the World’

In today’s Gospel from St. Luke, Christ says to his disciples that “whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?”

The 78 year old Pontiff reiterated Jesus’ words, stressing that the wrong path is that of always looking for one’s own success without thinking of others, even family.

“One can gain everything, but in the end becomes a failure,” he said.  

“‘But no, they made a monument to him, they painted a portrait of him…” But he has failed: he didn’t know how to choose between life and death.”

Concluding his homily, Pope Francis said that today’s responsorial psalm was the answer for mankind’s fear in making a decision: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord.”

Today, in the moment in which we stop to think of these things and make decisions, to choose something, we know that the Lord is with us, next to us, to help us. He never lets us go out alone, never! He is always with us. He is with us even in the moments when we make a choice,” he concluded. 

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Junno Arocho Esteves

Newark, New Jersey, USA Bachelor of Science degree in Diplomacy and International Relations.

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