February 25, 2018 - "The Message of Pope Francis for Lent 2018"

I have been reading and praying on the message of Pope Francis for Lent 2018.  I want to share some thoughts on his message in my column today.  In this year’s Lenten message Pope Francis takes his cue from these words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew:  “Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold” (24:12).
 
Pope Francis notes that these words appear in the preaching of Our Lord about the end times.  Jesus spoke these words in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, where His passion would begin.  The Disciples have asked Jesus a question.  In his answer to the Disciples, Jesus foretells a great tribulation and described a situation in which the community of believers might well find itself:  amid great trials, false prophets would lead people astray and the love that is at the core of the Gospel would grow cold in the hearts of many.
 
Next, Pope Francis invites us to listen to the Gospel passage and try to understand the guise that the false prophets might assume.
 
Snake charmers.  False prophets could appear under the guise of “snake charmers” who manipulate human emotions in order to enslave others and lead them where they would have them go.  Pope Francis laments how many of God’s children are mesmerized by momentary pleasures while mistaking them for true happiness.  How many men and women live entranced by the dream of wealth, which only makes them slaves to profit and petty interests!  Indeed, how many go through life believing that they are sufficient unto themselves, and end up entrapped by loneliness!
 
False prophets. Pope Francis comments that false prophets can also be “charlatans,” who offer easy and immediate solutions to suffering that soon prove utterly useless.  How many people are taken in by the panacea (a solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases) of drugs, of disposable relationships, of easy but dishonest gains!  How many more are enslaved in a thoroughly “virtual” existence, in which relationships appear quick and straightforward, only to prove meaningless!  These swindlers, in peddling things that have no real value, rob people of all that is most precious:  dignity, freedom and the ability of love.  They appeal to our vanity, our trust in appearances, but in the end only make fools of us.  The Holy Father states that we should not be surprised.  In order to confound the human heart, the devil, who is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44), has always presented evil as good, falsehood as truth.  That is why each of us is called to peer into our heart to see if we are falling into the lies of these false prophets.  We must learn to look closely, beneath the surface, and to recognize what leaves a good and lasting mark on our hearts, because it comes from God and is truly for our benefit.
 
A cold heart.  The Holy Father then recalls that in his description of hell, Dante Alighieri pictures the devil seated on a throne of ice (Inferno XXXIV, 28-29) in frozen and loveless isolation.  We might do well to ask ourselves how does it happen that charity can turn cold within us.   What are the signs that our love is beginning to cool?
 
Pope Francis believes that greed for money (“the root of all evil” [1 Timothy 6:10]) is what destroys charity, more than anything else.  The rejection of God and his peace soon follows. 

We prefer our own desolation rather than the comfort found in His Word and the Sacraments.  All of this leads to violence against anyone we think is a threat to our own “certainties”:  the unborn child, the elderly and the infirm, the migrant, the alien among us, or our neighbor who does not live up to our expectations.
 
Creation itself becomes a silent witness to this cooling of charity.  The earth is poisoned by refuse, discarded out of carelessness or self-interest.  The seas, themselves polluted, engulf the remains of countless shipwrecked victims of forced migration.  The heavens, which in the plan of God were created to sing the praises of the Lord, are rent by engines raining down implements of death.
 
The Holy Father also observes that love can grow cold in our own communities.  In his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis sought to describe the most evident signs of this lack of love:  selfishness and spiritual sloth (reluctance to work or make an effort, laziness), sterile pessimism, the temptation to self-absorption, constant warring among ourselves, and the worldly mentality that makes us concerned only for appearances, and thus lessens our missionary zeal.
 
I will conclude the presentation on the Holy Father’s message for Lent 2018 in my column for next week.
 
Until then,
Fr. John Dillon