Pope: The devil seeks to divide the Church at the root
of unity
(Vatican Radio) Divisions destroy the Church, and the devil
seeks to attack the root of unity: the celebration of the Eucharist. That
was the message of Pope Francis on Monday morning at the daily Mass at the Casa
Santa Marta, on the feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Commenting on the
reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians — where St Paul rebuked the
Corinthians for their contentiousness — Pope Francis said, “The devil has two
very powerful weapons to destroy the Church: divisions and money.” And this has
happened from the beginning: “ideological, theological divisions that lacerate
the Church. The devil sows jealousy, ambitions, ideas, but to divide! Or
greed.” And, as happens after a war, “everything is destroyed. And the devil is
pleased. And we, naïve as we are, are his game.” “It is a dirty war, that of
divisions,” he repeated. “It’s like terrorism,” the war of gossiping in the
community, that of language that kills”:
“And the divisions in the Church do not allow the Kingdom to grow;
they do not allow the Lord to be seen as He is. Divisions make you see this
part, this one against the other. Always against! There is no oil of unity, the
balsam of unity. But the devil goes elsewhere, not only in the Christian
community, he goes right to the root of Christian unity. And this happens here,
in the city of Corinth, to the Corinthians. Paul rebukes them precisely because
divisions arise, right at the heart of unity, that is, in the Eucharistic
celebration.”
In the case of
Corinth, riches make divisions between the rich and the poor precisely during
the Eucharist. Jesus, the Pope said, “prayed to the Father for unity. But the
devil seeks to destroy it” even there:
“I ask you to everything possible to not destroy the Church with
divisions; they are ideological, they come from greed and ambition, they come
from jealousy. And above all to pray, and to keep the founts, the very roots of
the unity of the Church, which is the Body of Christ; which we, every day,
celebrate [in] His sacrifice in the Eucharist.”
Saint Paul speaks
about the divisions among the Corinthians, two thousand years ago:
“Paul could say this to all of us today, to the Church of today.
‘Brothers, in this I cannot praise you, because you are gathered together not
for the better, but for the worse!’ But the Church gathers everyone together —
for the worse, for divisions: for the worse! To soil the Body of Christ in the
Eucharistic celebration! And the same Paul tells us, in another passage: ‘He
who eats and drinks the Body and the Blood of Christ unworthily, eats and
drinks his own condemnation.’ Let us ask the Lord for the unity of the Church,
that there may not be divisions. And for unity also in the root of the Church,
which is precisely the sacrifice of Christ, which we celebrate every day.”
Among those present at
the day’s Mass was Archbishop Arturo Antonio Szymanski Ramírez, the Archbishop
emeritus of San Luis Potosí in Mexico, who turned 95 in January. Pope Francis
noted his presence at the beginning of his homily, recalling that the
Archbishop had taken part in the Second Vatican Council, and that he still
helps in a parish. The Holy Father had received Archbishop Szymanski in an
audience on Friday.
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