Pope Francis exhorted to pray for “the grace to have a transparent heart like David’s; a transparent heart that only seeks justice and peace; a friendly heart that doesn’t want to kill anyone, because jealousies and envy kill,” he said in his homily at Saint Martha’s today, January 24, 2020, reflecting on King Saul’s envy of David, reported Vatican News.
Jealousies “Are Criminal”
The Holy Father said that the King’s jealousy, described in the First Book of Samuel, was stirred when the young maidens sang about Saul’s victory, who killed 1,000 enemies, whereas David killed 10,000. Jealousy, he stressed, is like a moth that eats you inside.”
“Saul goes out with his army to kill David” because “jealousies are criminal and always try to kill.” And for those that say: “yes, I’m jealous of this, but I’m not a murderer,” he warns, you aren’t so “now but, if you continue, it can end badly,” you can kill easily “with the tongue, with slander.”
Jealousies grow when one “speaks to oneself,” interpreting things in a jealous key. In this “murmuring with oneself,” the jealous person “is incapable of seeing the reality” and, only a “very strong event’” can open his eyes. So, in Saul’s imagination, jealousy made him believe that David was a murderer, an enemy.”
A Soap Bubble
“We too, when we feel envy, jealousies, do this, no? Each one of us must think: “Why is this person unbearable to me? Why don’t I even want to see this other one? — asked Pope Francis.
And he asked that each one of us think why, as many times we will wonder why and we will discover that they are our fantasies — but fantasies that grow in that murmuring with myself.”
“And in the end, it’s a grace of God when the jealous person meets with a reality as happened to Saul: jealousy bursts as a soap bubble because jealousies and envy have no consistency,” he added.
Salvation Lies in the Love of God
Francis pointed out that Saul’s salvation was in the love of God, “who had said to him that, if he didn’t obey, he would take away his kingdom, but that He loved him” and so, “He gave him the grace to have that soap bubble burst, which didn’t have consistency.”
The Pontiff continued to comment on the biblical episode. Saul entered the cavern where David and his men were hiding, “to relieve himself,” and David’s friends urged him to take advantage and kill the King, but David refused. “I will never lay my hands on the Lord’s anointed.”
Perceived in this passage is “David’s nobility compared with Saul’s murderous jealousies.” In silence, David cut a piece of the hem of the King’s cloak, “and took it with him.”
Return to Reality
Coming out of the cave, David respectfully called Saul: “Oh, King, my Lord. Why do you pay attention to people’s rumors when they say that David seeks your ruin?” And, showing him the piece of his cloak’s hem, said that he could have killed him but didn’t.
And it was this, said the Pontiff, that “burst the soap bubble of Saul’s jealousies, who then recognizes David “as a son and come back to reality, acknowledging: “You are more just than I am because you have done me good, while I’ve done you evil.”
“It’s a grace when the envious, the jealous person> faces a reality that bursts the soap bubble that is his vice of jealousies or envy,” stressed the Bishop of Rome, and he invited us to look at ourselves “when we are nasty to a person and don’t love him. “
Protect the Heart
In this connection, the Pope urged us to ask ourselves “What is inside me? Is the moth of jealousies growing because someone has something that I don’ have or because there is hidden anger?” To counteract this, we must “protect our heart from this sickness, from this murmuring with myself, which makes this soap bubble grow, which doesn’t have consistency but hurts a lot,” he explained.
Moreover, if someone comes to us “to speak badly of another,” we must make him understand that he often doesn’t speak with serenity, but “with passion” and, in that passion, “is the evil of envy, the evil of jealousies.”
“Let’s be attentive because this is a moth that enters the heart of all of us — of all of us! — and it leads us to judge people badly because inside there is a competition: he has something that I don’t have,” noted the Pope.
Do An Examination
Competition begins with that moth that “leads us to reject people, that leads us to war, a domestic war, a neighborhood war, a war in workplaces. However, at the origin is precisely the seed of a war: envy and jealousies.”
“When we feel antipathy for someone,” we must ask ourselves “Why do I feel this?” And let us not permit this ‘murmuring” with ourselves to make us think badly because this makes the soap bubble grow,” insisted <and warned> Pope Francis, as reported by Vatican News.
