Pope Francis’s multi-day meeting last week with his eight cardinal-advisors ended with a pilgrimage to Assisi on the feast day of St. Francis (October 4).
While there, the Holy Father echoed a theme that has become central to his pontificate: The church must reject the spirit of worldliness. The Holy Father said, “A Christian cannot coexist with the spirit of the world; worldliness that leads us to vanity, to arrogance, to pride.”
A worldly Christian is a contradiction in terms. A worldly person centers one’s identity in the world and focuses on the acquisition of wealth for wealth’s sake. When a person’s sole focus is on accumulating and possessing, one forgets the Gospel mandate to give. One forgets that there are people in our community, our country, and our world who go without food, shelter, and the basic necessities of life.
A Christian, on the contrary, is centered in Christ. Being centered in Christ leads to radiating Christ’s charity to others, particularly to those in need. It is not sinful for a Christian to possess wealth; it is sinful for a Christian to refuse to share one’s wealth to serve the common good.
St. Francis of Assisi rejected the material wealth of his family because he found his true wealth in Jesus. Not all Christians are called to embrace a life of poverty as St. Francis did, but all Christians are called to reject a worldly spirit, live their lives centered in Jesus Christ, and serve the common good by sharing their excess wealth with those in need.
