Scottish Catholic Observer

ANOTHER week, and once again our Pope is challenging us to do something difficult. Speaking on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, he piercingly punctured the cult of luxury that paralyses much                      of Europe.

“The culture of well-being, which leads us to think only of ourselves, makes us insensitive to the cries of others,” Pope Francis said.

‘The culture of well being’ is a fascinating phrase that highlights problems many people do not even realise they have. All our lives, we are prodded and pushed into thinking first and foremost of ourselves.  Every magazine suggests new worries about our wealth, our health and our relationships and the cure that is oft suggested is being ‘happy with ourselves.’ Yet as Pope Francis keeps reminding us, how can we be happy, when we think only of ‘I’?

All over the world there is terrible suffering; refuges drowning by the boatload in the Mediterranean and civilians being slaughtered by the truckload in Syria.

Far closer to home, there is plenty of suffering here in Scotland: Alcoholics who cannot stop drinking, the profoundly depressed who cannot stop crying.

Yet we spend our time worrying about how we are doing, how our lives are going. If we can just get to a place where we are happy, where we feel well, everything will be alright, we tell ourselves.

But this is a lie.

We are far better off worrying about other people than ourselves. This is the uncomfortable truth that Pope Francis keeps forcing us to confront. The ‘I,’ the ‘me’ does not matter. ‘Us’ matters, and the sooner we realise that the happier we will be.

Opening ourselves up to that happiness means not closing ourselves off, indeed it means facing the horrors of the world. We live in a cynical age, but we cannot afford to be cynical.

Modern media has brought horrors into out homes and lives, and made them feel like disaster films.

But every starving child on the six o’clock news still starves. Every child soldier on Newsnight still suffers.

The Pope says that following Jesus means remembering that every single person is alive and worthy of our compassion and respect—an easy principle to say, and even believe, but far, far harder to live.

The Holy Father comes across as a very genial, friendly man. All over the world people are warming to him but what he is asking of us is not easy or simple. The job he has set himself is no less than leading us out of the temptation of selfishness that corrodes every aspect of our lives.

We have to listen.