ROME — Pope Francis railed against hypocrisy Sunday, urging his hearers to live authentically and take off their masks.
Saint John the Baptist was “allergic to duplicity,” the pontiff said during his weekly Angelus message in the Vatican, and therefore was quite harsh in his rebuke of the Pharisees and Sadducees of his time, who were “known for their hypocrisy.”
Because of their duplicity and presumption, “they did not welcome the moment of grace, the opportunity to begin a new life,” the pope asserted, adding that “hypocrisy is the greatest danger because it can even ruin the most sacred realities.”
“Hypocrisy is a serious danger,” he said, which is why Jesus — like John — “speaks really strongly to the hypocrites of that time” in order to “shake them up.”
“Therefore, bravura is not important to welcome God, humility is,” the pope contended, because humility allows us to acknowledge we are sinners in need of repentance and salvation.
True conversion “requires getting off the pedestal and being immersed in the water of repentance,” he added.
We, too, can be like the Pharisees and Sadducees, he said, but “Advent is a moment of grace to take off our masks – every one of us has them – and line up with those who are humble.”
It is a time “to be liberated from the presumption of the belief of being self-sufficient, to go to confess our sins, the hidden ones, and to welcome God’s pardon, to ask forgiveness from those whom we have offended. This is how to begin a new life,” he said.
There is only one way, he continued, “the way of humility – to be purified from the sense of superiority, from formalism and hypocrisy, to see ourselves, along with our brothers and sisters, as sinners, and to see Jesus as the Savior who comes for us.”
He comes for us, “just as we are, with our poverty, misery and failings, above all with our need to be raised up, forgiven and saved,” he said.
The good news is that “with Jesus, there is always the possibility of beginning again,” he stated. “It’s never too late. There is always the possibility to begin again.”
“There is always the possibility of taking a step forward. He is waiting for us and never gets tired of us. He never gets tired!” he declared.
And in preparation for Christmas, Advent “is a moment of grace, a grace for us too, here and now!” he said.
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