VATICAN CITY — In his Thursday homily, Pope Francis warned against the dangers of envy, explaining that it is a sin that fosters bitterness against our brothers, stifles our joy and inhibits us from truly praising God.

When someone in a Christian community suffers from jealousy, Pope Francis said, the community “ends up divided: one against the other.” He said “this is a strong poison — a poison that we find on the first page of the Bible in [the story of] Cain.”

Giving his remarks to those gathered in the Vatican’s St. Martha guesthouse for the Jan. 23 Mass, the Pope centered his homily on the day’s first reading, taken from the First Book of Samuel, in which King Saul seeks to kill David out of jealousy for his victory over Goliath.

After hearing the women praise David, Saul’s joy turns into sadness and jealousy, and “that great victory begins to undergo defeat in the heart of the king,” the Pope said.

Just like the “worm of jealousy and envy” that seeped into the heart of Cain when he killed his brother Abel, the Holy Father said, “this is what jealousy does in our hearts.”

“It is a destructive anxiety which cannot tolerate that a brother or sister has something that I have not,” he explained.

And “instead of praising God for this victory, as did the women of Israel,” said the Pope, Saul “prefers to withdraw into himself, feeling sorry for himself,” and to “stew his feelings in the broth of bitterness.”

“Jealousy leads to murder. Envy leads to murder,” the Holy Father said, adding that “it was this door, the door of envy, through which the devil entered the world.”

Explaining how “jealousy and envy open the doors” to “all evil things,” Pope Francis said that “they also divide the community.”

 

The Jealous Heart

The Pope went on to describe that there are two “very clear” things present in the heart of someone who is affected by jealousy; the first of which is that “the envious person, the jealous person, is a bitter person who doesn’t know how to sing, how to praise, [or] know what joy is.”

Looking at someone in this way, considering only what they have and what we don’t have, “leads to bitterness, a bitterness that spreads throughout the whole community,” the Holy Father stated, referring to people with this mentality as “sowers of bitterness.”

A second approach which “brings jealousy and envy are rumors,” revealed the Pope, stating that when a person sees someone else who has something that they want, the solution is often to put the other person down, so that “I am a bit higher up.”

“Gossip” is a tool that is frequently used in this situation, said the Pope, noting that behind every rumor “there is jealousy and envy.”

“Gossip divides the community, destroys the community,” he said. “Rumors are the weapons of the devil.”

“How many beautiful Christian communities were getting along well” but were divided because one member allowed the “worm of jealousy and envy” to enter his or her heart, the Holy Father said.

With this jealousy comes “sadness, resentment and gossip,” he explained, stating that a person under the influence of envy “kills.”

Bringing his reflections to a close, Pope Francis asked for prayer for “our Christian communities, so that this seed of jealousy will not be sown between us, so that envy will not take root in our heart” or “in the heart of our communities, so we can move forward with praise to the Lord, praising the Lord with joy.”

He said, “It is a great grace: the grace of not falling into sadness, being resentful, jealous and envious."