Pope Francis encouraged people to live and maintain sobriety to be free when announcing the Gospel; and he warned that “the superfluous makes you a slave,” during his reflection before the Angelus prayer this Sunday, July 14, in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican before thousands of faithful present.
“Today the Gospel tells us about Jesus who sends his disciples on the mission (cf. Mc 6:7-13). He sends them ‘two by two’ and recommends one important thing to them: that they take with them only what is necessary,” the Holy Father indicated as he began his reflection.
Receive the main news from ACI Prensa by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social media. Subscribe to our free channels today:
“Let us pause for a moment on this image: the disciples are sent together and must take with them only what is necessary. The Gospel is not announced alone, but together, as a community, and to do so it is important to know how to guard sobriety,” he highlighted.
Pope Francis explained that this consists of “knowing how to be sober in the use of things, sharing resources, abilities and gifts, and dispensing with the superfluous, to be free. The superfluous makes you a slave”.
The Holy Father also encouraged “to be sober in thoughts and feelings, abandoning one’s own partial visions, prejudices and rigidities that, like useless luggage, weigh down and hinder the path, to favor, instead, confrontation and “listens, thus making one’s own testimony more effective.”
Pope Francis also explained that, even when there is little in families or communities, “with God’s help, we are capable of moving forward and getting along, sharing what there is, everyone giving up something and supporting each other.”
And this, he stressed, “is already a missionary announcement, before and even more than words, because it embodies the beauty of Jesus’ message in the concreteness of life.”
In this way, “an atmosphere rich in love is created, in which it is easier to open oneself to faith and the novelty of the Gospel and from which one emerges better, more serene.”
If the opposite is true and “everyone goes on their own, if what counts are only things – which are never enough –, if we do not listen to each other, if individualism and envy prevail – which is a deadly thing, a poison – the air becomes heavy, life becomes difficult and encounters become more an occasion for restlessness, sadness and discouragement than for joy (cf. Mt 19:22),” he warned.
Pope Francis highlighted that communion, “harmony among us,” and sobriety are “indispensable values for a Church that is missionary, at all levels.”
Pope Francis’ questions for reflection this Sunday
The Holy Father then encouraged each one to ask themselves: “Do I feel the pleasure of announcing the Gospel, of bringing, wherever I live, the joy and light that come from the encounter with the Lord? To do so, do I strive to walk alongside others, sharing ideas and abilities with them, with an open mind and a generous heart?”
And he also urged us to question ourselves: “Do I know how to cultivate a sober lifestyle, a lifestyle attentive to the needs of the brothers? These are questions that will do us good to ask.”
“May Mary, Queen of Apostles, help us to be true missionary disciples, in communion and in sobriety of life,” Pope Francis concluded.
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.