By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Prayer powers the light that Christians are called to share with the world, Pope Francis said.

“You can do many great things for the church — a Catholic university, a school, a hospital — and they will even build you a monument as a benefactor of the church,” the pope said June 7 during a morning Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

“But if you don’t pray,” he said, all of those charitable efforts and works of mercy “will be a bit murky or dark” and without light because they weren’t rooted in prayer, he said.

“What is the Christian’s battery for making light? Simply prayer,” he said, according to Vatican Radio.

The thing that “gives life to Christian light, what illuminates, is prayer” that comes from the heart and gives God thanks and praise, he said.

However, he said, it is important to share that light and not be tempted to keep it for oneself, which would be a kind of “looking-glass spirituality” and “is something awful.”

When God asks that Christians be the light of the world and salt of the earth, both of these gifts are meant to be shared with others through good works that render glory to God.

By recognizing that the gifts come from God, they will never be exhausted because he gives freely, the pope said. His gift will “continue to be given to you if you continue to give it — illuminating and giving. And it will never run out.”

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