Pope at Audience: Unjust investments come at 'bloody price of millions of human lives'
By Kielce Gussie
During his Wednesday General Audience in St. Peter's Square, Pope Leo XIV reflected on the universal feeling that we all have to be constantly on-the-go, which “drives us to do, to act.”
He highlighted how speed is often required to reach the ideal goals in almost any field. But, rather than focus on worldly demands, he turned the focus to Jesus’ Resurrection and how this can affect our daily life.
When all of us participate in Christ's victory over death, the question is: Will we find rest? The Pope explained that our faith tells us that we will. Yet, it will not be an inactive rest. Rather, we will live in peace and joy. Pope Leo asked: “So, should we just wait, or can this change us right now?”
“At the bloody price of millions of human lives”
Each day, we find ourselves completely absorbed in activities that do not fulfill us, but which deal with practical, concrete issues.
Our daily lives are filled with choices, problems, difficulties, and responsibilities. This was also the case for Jesus, yet His focus remained on “giving Himself to the end.”
Pope Leo warned against thinking that doing so many things gives fulfillment. Instead, it “becomes a vortex that overwhelms us, takes away our serenity, and prevents us from living to the fullest what is truly important in our lives.”
When we are tired and dissatisfied, it can feel as though we spend so much of our time on a million practical things that do not lead us to the final goal of our existence. Even at the end of days full of events and activities, we can feel empty. Why, the Pope asked, “Because we are not machines, we have a ‘heart’; indeed, we can say that we are a heart.”
The heart, the Holy Father explained, “is the symbol of all our humanity, the sum of our thoughts, feelings, and desires, the invisible centre of ourselves.” The Gospel of Matthew invites us to reflect on the heart as the place where we keep all our treasure.
For this reason, it is essential that we do not store our treasure in earthly, temporal things. Our treasure should not be found in financial investments, “which today more than ever before are out of control and unjustly concentrated at the bloody price of millions of human lives and the devastation of God’s creation.”
The Pope urged everyone to look within themselves to see where their treasure and hearts lie because with the sometimes-overwhelming amounts of commitments, we face a growing risk of dispersion, despair, and meaninglessness.
Quieting our restless hearts
Yet, if we shift our interpretation of life and put it through the lens of Easter, we can find meaning; we gain “access to the essence of the human person, to our heart: cor inquietum.” This is the “restless heart” which St. Augustine is so famous for speaking about in his work, Confessions.
This sense of restlessness shows that our hearts do not move by chance, “in a disordered way, without a purpose or a destination, but are oriented towards their ultimate destination, the ‘return home’.” Our heart’s true treasure is found in the God who loves, and we can encounter this in loving our neighbors.
Seeing our brothers and sisters requires us to slow down and look them in the eyes; sometimes, it requires a change of plans or a new direction.
As Pope Leo noted, the secret of the heart’s movement is “returning to the source of its being, delighting in the joy that never fails, that never disappoints.”
It is impossible to live without meaning, beyond that which goes away. “The human heart cannot live without hope,” the Pope stressed, “without knowing that it is made for fullness, not for want.”
Jesus—through His Incarnation, Passion, Death, and Resurrection—paved the road to this hope for us. If we enter “into the dynamism of the love for which it was created,” our restless hearts will not be disappointed. The destination is sure, life has won, and through Christ, life will continue to win “in every death of daily life.”
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