Identify and Confess your Sins 'concretely,' Pope Francis Says

John writes: “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say, ‘We have fellowship with him,’ while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth.”

The verse continues: “If we say, ‘We are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.”

Pope Francis said the devil wants people to be lukewarm, to live in gray areas.

He advised people to speak with God with the forthrightness of children, who say what they think and feel without trying to hide the truth.

To illustrate this point, the pope shared about a letter he received yesterday from a boy living in northern Italy.

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The boy wrote that he had watched Pope Francis’ televised Mass and “he had to ‘scold me’ about one thing,” the pope related.

The boy said that because of the coronavirus, Pope Francis should not include the sign of peace during Mass, because “with the pandemic we cannot touch each other.”

Children’s letters are beautiful for their directness, Francis commented, explaining that the boy could not see that the congregation at his morning Mass does not shake hands, but bows their heads to exchange the sign of peace.

“But he has the freedom to say things as they are,” he said.

“We too, with the Lord, must have the freedom to say things as they are,” he continued. “Lord, I am in sin: help me.”

He said God “forgives us when we are concrete. The spiritual life is so simple, so simple; but we make it complicated with these nuances, and in the end we never get there.”

“Let’s ask the Lord for the grace of simplicity and that he gives us this grace he gives to the simple, to children, to youths who say what they feel, who do not hide what they feel,” he concluded.

After Mass, the pope presided at adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Afterward, the congregation sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”

At the start of Mass, Pope Francis noted the day’s feast of St. Catherine of Siena, who is the patroness of Italy and of Europe.

“Let us pray for Europe, for the unity of Europe, for the unity of the European Union, so that we can all go forward together as brothers,” he said.

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Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency's senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.