Church needs communion, harmony, moderation to be missionary, pope says

VATICAN CITY — Envy is poison, and when envy and individualism prevail over communion, life becomes difficult, Pope Francis said.

“When we are content with what is necessary, even with little, with God’s help we are able to go forward and get along, sharing what there is, everyone renouncing something and supporting each other,” he said before praying the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square July 14.

The pope reflected on the day’s Gospel reading from St. Mark (6:7-13) about the mission of the 12 disciples in which Jesus sent them out “two by two” and told them “to take nothing for the journey” but only what was necessary.

“We do not proclaim the Gospel alone,” the pope said. The Gospel “is proclaimed together, as a community, and to do this it is important to know how to preserve sobriety,” that is, moderation and temperance in all things.

“The superfluous enslaves you,” he said. In order to be free, it is enough to have “what we need to live in a dignified way and to contribute actively to the mission.”

It is important to know “how to be sober in the use of things, sharing resources, capacities and gifts, and doing without the superfluous,” he said.

It also means “to be sober in thoughts, to be sober in feelings, abandoning our preconceived ideas and abandoning the inflexibility that, like pointless baggage, weighs us down and hinders the journey, instead fostering discussion and listening and thus making witness more effective,” he said.

A family or a community living in moderation creates “an environment rich in love, in which it is easier to open oneself to faith and the newness of the Gospel, and from which one starts out better, one starts out more serene,” he said.

“Envy is something lethal, a poison,” he said. If only material things count, if one does not listen, if individualism and envy prevail, “the air becomes heavy, life becomes difficult, and encounters become an occasion of restlessness, sadness and discouragement, rather than an occasion of joy.”

Pope Francis said communion, harmony and sobriety are “indispensable values for a church to be missionary at all levels.”