During his homily at Casa Santa Marta on Monday, the Pope said that 'the devil has two very powerful weapons to destroy the Church: divisions and money.â?
POPE FRANCIS
'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.â?
Pope Francis also compared the present situation of the Church
with with the First Corinthians, where Saint Paul reproaches them for their disputes.
SUMMARY OF THE PAPAL HOMILY
(Source: Vatican Radio)
'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.â?
'I ask you to do 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.â?
'Paul could say this to all of us today, to the Church of today. â??Brothers, in this I cannot praise
you, because you are gathered together not for the better, but for the worse!â?? But the Church gathers everyone together â?? 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: â??He who eats and drinks the Body and the Blood of Christ unworthily, eats and drinks his own condemnation.â?? 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.â?
