Pope Francis Calls for Prayer and Charity over Consumerism
This Advent, choose prayer and charity over consumerism, Pope Francis said Sunday December 1, in his first Mass of the liturgical year.
“Resist the dazzling lights of consumption, which will shine everywhere this month, and believe that prayer and charity are not lost time, but the greatest treasures,” Pope Francis said in his Advent homily Dec. 1.
“This is the drama of today: houses full of things, but empty of children,” he said in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Pope Francis celebrated an Advent Mass with Congolese immigrants, in which he warned against the selfish attitudes in a society where “consumerism reigns.”
“Consumerism is a virus that affects the faith at its root because it makes you believe that life depends only on what you have, and so you forget about God,” he warned. “The meaning of life is not to accumulate.”
“When you live for things, things are never enough, greed grows and others become obstacles in the race and so you end up feeling threatened and, always dissatisfied and angry … ‘I want more, I want more, I want more,’” he said. “One has many goods, but no good is done.”
