Prayer powers light Christians must share with the world, pope says

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Prayer powers the light that
Christians are called to share with the world, Pope Francis said.

“You can do many great things for the church — a
Catholic university, a school, a hospital — and they will even build you a
monument as a benefactor of the church,” the pope said June 7 during a
morning Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

“But if you don’t pray,” he said, all of those
charitable efforts and works of mercy “will be a bit murky or dark”
and without light because they weren’t rooted in prayer, he said.

“What is the Christian’s battery for making light?
Simply prayer,” he said, according to Vatican Radio.

The thing that “gives life to Christian light, what
illuminates, is prayer” that comes from the heart and gives God thanks and
praise, he said.

However, he said, it is important to share that light and
not be tempted to keep it for oneself, which would be a kind of
“looking-glass spirituality” and “is something awful.”

When God asks that Christians be the light of the world and
salt of the earth, both of these gifts are meant to be shared with others
through good works that render glory to God.

By recognizing that the gifts come from God, they will never
be exhausted because he gives freely, the pope said. His gift will
“continue to be given to you if you continue to give it — illuminating
and giving. And it will never run out.”

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