Pope Francis criticized Christians during Mass on Tuesday at Casa Santa Marta.<\/p>\n
He described Christianity as a religion that must act for good, not a 'religion of saying\u00e2?\u009d made of hypocrisy and vanity.
\nPope Francis censured Christians who treat the faith as though it were window dressing, without obligations.<\/p>\n
POPE FRANCIS
\n'Perhaps they have their parents in a nursing home, but always are busy and cannot go and visit them and so leave them there, abandoned. \u00e2??But I am very Catholic: I belong to that association,\u00e2?? [they say]. This is the religion of saying: I say it is so, but I do according to the ways of the world.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
In the end, the Pope asked God to teach Christians between saying and doing, with good deeds and not words.<\/p>\n
EXTRACTS FROM THE HOMILY
\n(Source: Vatican)<\/p>\n
Building on the reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah in concert with the passage proclaimed from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, the Holy Father sought to explain once again the 'evangelical dialectic between saying and doing.\u00e2?\u009d He placed emphasis on the words of Jesus, which \u00a0unmask the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees, calling the disciples and crowds to do as they say, though not as they do:<\/p>\n
'The Lord teaches us the way of doing: and how many times we find people \u00e2?? ourselves included \u00e2?? so often in the Church, who say, \u00e2??Oh, we are very Catholic.\u00e2?? \u00e2??But what do you do?\u00e2?? How many parents say they are Catholics, but never have time to talk to their children, to play with their children, to listen to their children. Perhaps they have their parents in a nursing home, but always are busy and cannot go and visit them and so leave them there, abandoned. \u00e2??But I am very Catholic: I belong to that association,\u00e2?? [they say]. This is the religion of saying: I say it is so, but I do according to the ways of the world.\u00e2?\u009d
\nThe way of 'saying and not doing,\u00e2?\u009d says the Pope, 'is a deception.\u00e2?\u009d Isaiah's words indicate what is pleasing to God: 'Cease to do evil, learn to do good,\u00e2?\u009d and, 'relieve the oppressed, do right by the orphan, plead for the widow.\u00e2?\u009d It also shows another thing: the infinite mercy of God, which says to humanity, 'Come, let us talk it over: though your sins
\n\t\tbe as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
'The mercy of the Lord goes out to meet those who dare to argue with Him, but to argue about the truth, about the things one does or does not do, [and He argues] in order to correct me. This, then, is the great love of the Lord, in this dialectic between saying and doing. To be a Christian means to do: to do the will of God \u00e2?? and on the last day \u00e2?? because all of us we will have one \u00e2?? that day what shall the Lord ask us? Will He say: 'What you have said about me?\u00e2?\u009d No. He shall ask us about the things we did.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
Pope Francis went on to make explicit mention of the lines from Matthew\u00e2??s Gospel, which foretell of the Last
\n\t\tJudgment, when God will call men to account for what they have done to the hungry, thirsty, imprisoned, strangers. 'This,\u00e2?\u009d said the Holy Father, 'is the Christian life: mere talk leads to vanity, to that empty pretense of being Christian \u00e2?? but no, that way one is not a Christian at all.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
'May the Lord give us this wisdom to understand well where lies the difference between saying and doing, and teach us the way of doing and help us to go down that way, because the way of saying brings us to the place where were these teachers of the law, these clerics, who liked dressing up and acting just like if they were so many Majesties \u00e2?? and this is not the reality of the Gospel. May the Lord teach us this way.\u00e2?\u009d<\/p>\n
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