In his homily during Mass at Casa Santa Marta, the pope said that humility and humiliation are the only way to avoid egotism, greed, arrogance, vanity and worldliness.
POPE FRANCIS
'These people that Jesus rebukes are people who follow a 'cosmeticâ? religion: (about) show, appearance and pretending to be something but insideâ?¦ Jesus uses a very strong image to describe these people: 'You are like whitewashed tombs that look handsome on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of corruption.â?
Pope Francis said that appearances do not make a good Christian and that people should live their faith free from the opinion of others.
EXCERPTS FROM THE PAPAL HOMILY
(Source: Radio Vaticana)
''Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil.'â? And Jesus repeats this many times in the Gospel to these people: Your interior is wicked, is not good and is not free. 'You are slaves because you have not accepted the justice that comes from God, the justice that Jesus has given us.''
'That inner freedom, that freedom to do good deeds in secret without blowing our trumpets because the path of true religion is Jesusâ?? path: humility and humiliation. And as Paul says to the Philippians, Jesus humiliates himself, empties himself. This is the only way to remove egoism, cupidity, arrogance, vanity and worldliness from ourselves. On the contrary, these people that Jesus rebukes are people who follow a 'cosmeticâ? religion: (about) show, appearance and pretending to be something but insideâ?¦ Jesus uses a very strong image to describe these people: 'You are like whitewashed tombs that look handsome on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of corruption.â?
'Let us ask the Lord for us never to get tired of journeying along this path, to never get tired of rejecting this religion of show, of appearance, of pretending. And let us journey silently doing good, freely just as we freely received our inner freedom. And may He guard this inner freedom for all of us. Let us ask for this grace.â?
