On the evening of October 1, Pope Francis celebrated Mass for the Gendarmerie Corps of Vatican City State. The Mass took place at the Lourdes Grotto in the Vatican Gardens.

Cautioning against lukewarmness, the Pope said that “almost all of you entered the gendarme because of a vocation, a desire to do something good, as service, as growth. And then, as it happens to us priests, too, to everyone, one gets used to it; and when one gets used to it, instead of growing, you sink down further and further.”

“If you don’t revive your vocation, if you don’t make it grow every day, that vocation of service, which is very beautiful, eventually — this is not a curse, no, it happens to everybody — eventually the things that don’t grow become corrupted,” the Pope added.