Vatican City, 16 May, 2020 / 10:34 am (ACI Africa).
The only cure for worldliness is faith in Jesus Christ and in his death and resurrection, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass Saturday.
“There is one thing that does not tolerate worldliness: the scandal of the cross. It does not tolerate it,” the pope said May 16. “And the only medicine against the spirit of worldliness is Christ who died and rose for us, scandal and foolishness.”
At Mass in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta, his Vatican residence, Pope Francis urged Catholics in the last two weeks of Easter to “ask the Holy Spirit for the grace to discern what worldliness is and what the Gospel is and not to be deceived.”
In his homily, the pope reflected on the day’s Gospel reading from St. John, when Jesus told his disciples: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.”
Some people think worldliness just means partying, Francis said. “Worldliness may be this, but it is not fundamentally this,” he said.