Pope: No to Double lives: Christians are people of
light
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis
warned Christians against having double lives, displaying an outer facade of
light but having darkness in their hearts. He urged them to walk in the light
and not tread dark paths, saying God’s truth cannot be found there. The Pope’s
remarks came during his homily at Mass celebrated on Friday morning in the
Santa Marta residence.
Taking his cue from the
reading of St John’s First Letter, Pope Francis reflected on the eternal
struggle against sin, saying we must be pure like the Father but even if we sin
we can count on his pardon and his tenderness. He stressed the Apostle’s
warning to believers to tell the truth and not have double lives, saying one
thing but doing another.
Walk in the light
“If you say you are in
communion with the Lord, then walk in the light. But no to double
lives! Not that! That lie that we are so used to seeing and where we too
sometimes fall (into temptation), don’t we? To say one thing and do
another, right? It’s the never ending temptation. And we know where
that lie comes from: in the Bible, Jesus calls the devil ‘the father of lies’,
the liar. It’s for this reason that this grandfather says with infinite
tenderness and meekness to the ‘adolescent’ Church: ‘Don’t be a liar! You are
in communion with God, walk in the light. Do works of light, don’t say one
thing and do another. No to double lives and all that.”
Bigger than our sins
Noting how John began his
Letter with the greeting, ‘children’, Pope Francis said this affectionate
beginning is just like the tone of a grandfather towards his ‘young
grandchildren’ and reveals the tenderness and light contained in this reading.
It also recalls Jesus’ words when he promised “rest” to all those “who labour
and are overburdened.” In the same way, the Pope continued, John urges his
readers not to sin but if somebody does, to not be discouraged by this.
“We have a Paraclete, a word,
an advocate, a defender at the Father’s side, it’s Jesus Christ, the Upright
One. He makes us righteous. It is He who pardons us. A person may feel like
saying to this grandfather who gives us this advice: ‘But is it such a bad
thing to have sins?’ ‘No, a sin is a bad thing! But if you have sinned, look at
who is waiting to pardon you.’ Always! That’s because He, our Lord, is greater
than our sins.”
The Pope concluding by saying
this is God’s Mercy and his greatness and it’s from Him alone that we can get
our strength.
“We must walk in the light
because God is Light. Don’t walk with one foot in the light and the other
in darkness. Do not be liars. And one other thing: we have all
sinned. Nobody can say: ‘This man is a sinner, this woman is a sinner.’
I, thanks to God, am upright.’ No, only one is Upright, He who paid for us. And
if somebody sins, He is waiting for us and pardons us because He is merciful
and knows very well what we are shaped from and remembers that we are but dust.
May the joy that this Letter gives us, carry us forward in the simplicity and
the transparency of the Christian life, above all when we turn to the Lord…
with truth.”
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