Pope's quotes: Spiritual desertification

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A quote from Pope Francis:

"In effect, today we often experience 'a spiritual desertification.' Especially in places where people live as if God did not exist, our Christian communities are meant to be sources of living water quenching thirst with hope, a presence capable of inspiring encounter, solidarity and love. They are called to receive and rekindle God’s grace, to overcome self-centeredness and to be open to mission. Faith cannot be shared if it is practiced apart from life, in unreal isolation and in self-referential communities resistant to change. Thus it would be impossible to respond to the insistent thirst for God that nowadays finds expression also in various new forms of religiosity. These at times risk encouraging concern for oneself and one’s needs alone, and promoting a kind of 'spiritual consumerism.' Unless people today 'find in the Church a spirituality which can offer healing and liberation, and fill them with life and peace, while at the same time summoning them to fraternal communion and missionary fruitfulness, they will end up by being taken in by solutions which neither make life truly human nor give glory to God.' "

-- Audience of World Communion of Reformed Churches, June 10, 2016

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