"Greed, vanity and pride are the root of all evil": they produce an
“bad” restlessness in man, fruit of a dirty conscience and the "good
restlessness" that comes from the Holy Spirit and that pushes to do good
things said Pope Francis at Mass this morning in the Casa Santa Marta.He was inspired by the Gospel of the day on King Herod’s restlessness because, after killing John the Baptist, he felt threatened by Jesus. He was troubled just as his father, Herod the Great, was after the visit of the Magi.
"Our soul can be consumed by two types of worry: a good one gifted us by the Holy Spirit, that spurs an anxious soul to do good things" and a "bad worry, one that is born of a guilty conscience". The two Herods resolved their troubles killing, going forward by passing "over the corpses of the people".
"These people who did so much harm, who did harm and then had a guilty conscience and could not live in peace, their lives pervaded by a continuous itching, a rash that would not leave them alone ... These people have done evil, but evil always has the same root, all evil: greed, vanity and pride. And all three do not allow peace of conscience; all three do allow the healthy concern of the Holy Spirit in, they prevent you from living well: uneasy with fear. Greed, vanity and pride are the root of all evil ".
The first reading of the day, taken from Ecclesiastes speaks of the vanity. "The vanity that fills us. The vanity that has long life because it is like a soap bubble. The vanity that does not give us any real gain. What does man gain for all his anxious labor? When he is anxious to appear, to pretend, to seem. This is vanity. To put it simply: vanity is making up one’s life. And this sickens the soul, because you make up your life to appear, to seem, and do everything out of pretense, for vanity, in the end what can you hope to gain? Vanity is like an osteoporosis of the soul: From the outside the bones seem good, but inside they are ruined. Vanity leads us to fraud". Like fraudsters mark the "cards to win - he added - and then "this victory is fake, it is not true. This is the vanity to pretend to live, to live to seem, to appear to live. And this restless soul".
Saint Bernard - the Pope said – has strong words for the vain: "But think about what you will be. You will be meal for worms. And all this pretense in life is a lie, because the worms will eat and you will be nothing".
But where is the power of vanity?
Driven by pride and malice, "do not let your mistakes be seen, cover everything, everything is covered":
"How many people do we know who seem ... 'But they are such a good person! They go to Mass every Sunday. They give large donations to the Church '. This is what you see, but osteoporosis is the corruption they have inside. There are people like that - but there are holy people as well! - That does this. Vanity is this: It gives you a perfect face and but the truth is otherwise. And where is our strength and security, our refuge? We read in the Psalm: 'Lord, You have been our refuge from generation to a generation'. And before the Gospel we have remembered the words of Jesus: 'I am the way, the truth and the life'. This is the truth, not the pretense of vanity. May the Lord deliver us from these three roots of all evil: greed, vanity and pride. But above all vanity, that causes so much hurt".