Pope Francis tackled the great evil of vanity during Mass today, asking what good does it do for us to put “make up” on our lives, pretending to be who we are not, making ourselves look like something we are not, when we will only end up as food for worms?

Vatican Radio is reporting on the homily which took place today at daily Mass at the Casa Santa Marta. Based on the gospel reading about King Herod (Antipas) who was anxious after having murdered St. John the Baptist, Herod now felt threatened by Jesus just as his father, Herod the Great, was troubled after the visit of the Magi.

This story reveals the two different kinds of anxiety in the soul, the pope explained, a “good” anxiety, which “the Holy Spirit gives us” and which “makes the soul restless to do good things”; and a “bad” anxiety, “that which is born from a dirty conscience.” The two Herods tried to resolve their anxiety by killing, going forward over “the bodies of the people”:

“These people who had done such evil, who does evil and has a dirty conscience and cannot live in peace, because they live with a continual itch, with a continual rash that does not leave them in peace," the pope said.

"These people have done evil, but evil always has the same root, any evil: greed, vanity, and pride. And all three do not leave the conscience in peace; all three do not allow the healthy restlessness of the Holy Spirit to enter, but bring you to live like this: anxiously, with fear. Greed, vanity, and pride are the roots of all evils.”

He then turned his attention to the day’s first reading from Ecclesiastes which speaks about vanity.

“The vanity that makes us swell up. The vanity that does not have long life, because it is like a soap bubble. The vanity that does not give us true gain," the pope continued. "What profit comes to the person for all the effort he puts into worrying? He is anxious to appear, to pretend, to seem. This is vanity . . . vanity is covering up real life. And this makes the soul sick. Because in the end, if they cover up their real life in order to appear or to seem a certain way, all the things they do to pretend… What is gained? Vanity is like an osteoporosis of the soul: the bones seem good on the outside, but within they are totally ruined. Vanity makes us a fraud.”

He liked the vain person to con men who “mark the cards” in order to win.

But “this victory is a fiction, it’s not true. This is vanity: living to pretend, living to seem, living to appear. And this makes the soul restless.”

He referred to the advice St. Bernard once gave to those who suffer from vanity. “Think of what you will be: food for worms.”

The Pope added: “All this ‘putting make-up’ on life is a lie, because the worms will eat you and you will be nothing.”

“How many people do we know that appear one way: ‘What a good person! He goes to Mass every Sunday. He makes great donations to the Church.’ This is how they appear, but the osteoporosis is the corruption they have within. There are people like this – but there are also holy people! – who do this.

“This is vanity: You try to appear with a face like a pretty picture, and yet your truth is otherwise. And where is our strength and security, our refuge? We read it in the psalm between the readings: ‘Lord, you have been our refuge from generation to generation.’ And before the Gospel we recalled the words of Jesus: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ This is the truth, not the cosmetics of vanity.

"May the Lord free us from these three roots of all evil: greed, vanity, and pride. But especially from vanity, that makes us so bad.”

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