Don’t say one thing and do another, Pope Francis warned Christians during a recent homily, and urged them to stand strong against the “never ending temptation” to “walk with one foot in the light and the other in darkness.”

Vatican Radio is reporting on the Pope’s homily from Friday morning Mass at his Santa Marta residence where he reflected on 1 John: 1-7 about the importance of walking 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 [St. John] 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.”

He also stressed the need to avoid becoming discouraged if we fall into sin.

“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 continued by saying this is God’s Mercy and his greatness and it’s from Him alone that we must draw 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.”

H concluded: “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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