The war begins at home, with rivalries in the family, in the parish, in the workplace, and this is where peace must first be made. This was the core of the message Pope Francis delivered November 5, 2018, in his homily at Mass in Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican. He invited the congregation to live with gratuity and seek concord.
In his homily, reported by Vatican News, the Pope urged “do not do things out of interest”: choosing friendships for “profit” is “a form of egoism, segregation and interest,” while the “message of Jesus” is “freeness” which “expands life”, “enlarges the horizon, because it is universal”. On the contrary, he warned, rivalry and gloriole are “dividing factors” and go “against unity”.
The Pope once again warned against gossiping: “Gossip is also born of rivalry because many people feel that they can not grow up, but to be above the other, they diminish another by gossiping. It’s a way of destroying people … A rivalry is a struggle to crush the other. It’s ugly, rivalry: it can be open, direct or it can be done with gloves; but always to destroy the other and to raise oneself. And since I can not be so virtuous, so good, I diminish the other, so I always stay above. ”
The rivalry, he insisted, “destroys a community, destroys a family … the rivalry between the brothers for the inheritance of the father, for example, it happens every day. Think of grandiosity, those who boast of being better than others.
And the Pope concluded by pointing out that war is at home: “When we read news of wars, when we think of news of child hunger in Yemen, the fruit of war: it is far, poor children … but why do not they have anything to eat? But the same war is at home, in our institutions, with this rivalry: it begins there, the war! And peace must be there: in the family, in the parish, in institutions, in the workplace, always seeking unanimity and concord… “
