The Pope's message for Lent 2016 warned about the corrupting influence of money and power.

And it pointing out that caring for the poor, and not just praying for them, is the path to genuine conversion.

"The corporal and spiritual works of mercy must never be separated," the Pope wrote.

"By touching the flesh of the crucified Jesus in the suffering, sinners can receive the gift of realising that they too are poor and in need."

Too often, he stated, "the real poor are revealed as those who refuse to see themselves as such . . . . This is because they are slaves to sin, which leads them to use wealth and power not for the service of God and others, but to stifle within their hearts the profound sense that they too are only poor beggars".

The Pope counselled against the "illusion of omnipotence", "which reflects in a sinister way the diabolical ‘you will be like God' (Gen 3:5) which is the root of all sin".

This illusion can take social and political forms, as in past totalitarian systems, and more recently "by the ideologies of monopolising thought and technoscience, which would make God irrelevant and reduce man to raw material to be exploited".

The Pope sounded a warning to "wealthier individuals and societies", which refuse to even see the poor.

"Yet the danger always remains that by a constant refusal to open the doors of their hearts to Christ who knocks on them in the poor, the proud, rich and powerful will end up condemning themselves and plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude which is hell.

"The pointed words of Abraham apply to them and to all of us: ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them' (Luke 16:29)"

Sources

• Religion News Service
• Pope's 2016 Lenten Message
• Image: DICI

Preaching the Gospel, the Pope says, is actually the greatest act of charity, since it involves "the highest and the most integral promotion of the human person".

"There is no action more beneficial — and therefore more charitable — towards one's neighbour than to break the bread of the Word of God, to share with him the Good News of the Gospel, to introduce him to a relationship with God," he says.

"When we make room for the love of God, then we become like him, sharing in his own charity," the Pope said.

"If we open ourselves to his love, we allow him to live in us and to bring us to love with him, in him and like him."

Less than two weeks before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, the Pope's message was presented at a press conference in Rome.

Cardinal Robert Sarah, the president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, underscored the Pope's insistence that Christian faith cannot be seen as separate from, or in conflict with, charitable work.

The cardinal said that the mistaken tendency to see a separation between these two virtues can take several forms.

"It is a misunderstanding," Cardinal Sarah said, "to emphasise the faith, and the liturgy as its privileged channel, so strongly as to forget that they are intended for actual persons who have their own needs."

However, he continued, it is also wrong to think "that the Church is some kind of great act of philanthropy or solidarity that is purely human."

Finally, he said: "A further misconception is to divide the Church into a 'good Church' — the one of charitable action — and a 'bad Church' — the one that insists on the truth, that defends and protects human live and the universal moral values."

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

The Holy See (Pope's message)

Image: Catholic News Agency