“Doing good with humbleness”: this imperative is the remedy to the “religion of makeup”, which is based on outward appearance and “pretence”. Pope Francis said this in the homily of the Mass he celebrated today at Santa Marta in memory of Saint John XXIII. Christian freedom comes from Jesus, “not from our works”, Pope Francis warned, decrying the attitude of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law to whom Jesus often says in the Gospel “You Pharisees, you cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside you are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Inside you are bad, you are unjust, you are not free. You are slaves because you have rejected the justice that comes from God, the justice that Jesus gave us”. In another Gospel passage, the Pope said, Jesus asks us to pray in secret, without being seen. Some, he noted, were “showing off” and “had no shame”: they prayed and gave alms to be admired. The Lord, by contrast, shows us the path of humbleness, the Pope explained: “inner freedom, that freedom of doing good in secret, without sounding the trumpet, because the path of true religion is the same path taken by Jesus: that of humbleness and humiliation. As St Paul tells the Philippians, Jesus humbled himself, emptied himself. This is the only path for us to eradicate our selfishness, greed, pride, vanity and worldliness. Indeed, the people Jesus rebukes are the people who follow the “religion of makeup”: outward appearance, showing off, pretending to be good, but inside… Jesus uses a strong image to describe these people: ‘You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth’”. “Let us ask the Lord for the grace to continue to walk on this path, and to always reject that religion of appearance, of pretence, of showing off”, Pope Francis concluded.