Charity "must be hidden", because "anything must be done to the glory of God, not to our own glory". This is the "awareness that must go with "every gesture of assistance of one’s neighbours, preventing it turning into a way of showing up". This was written by the Pope in his Lenten Message published today wholly focussed on the practice of charity, which "is an effective way of helping those in need as well as an ascetic exercise to get rid of our attachment to the earthly goods". "If in doing a good deed warns Benedict XVI our aim is not the glory of God and the true good of our brothers, but we look forward to a return of personal interest or simply to praise, we place ourselves outside the evangelic perspective". "In the modern civilisation of appearance goes on the Pope , we have to be carefully wary, because this temptation is a recurring one". Evangelical charity "is not mere philanthropy", but "an effective expression of love, which demands one’s inner conversion to the love of God and of one’s brothers". "Giving one’s goods to the others is not much use if, because of this, one’s heart swells with conceit", presses the Pope, thanking "the many people who, in silence, far from the spotlights of the media society, do generous gestures to help their neighbours in need". (continued)
