“There are visible and invisible sins, hidden sins. There are blatant sins that make noise, and there are subtle sins that lurk in the heart without us even realising it”. Pope Francis explained this in the catechesis of today’s general audience, dedicated to the second petition in the second part of the Our Father – “Forgive us our trespasses”. He said that “pride is the worst of these sins, for it can infect even people who live an intense religious life”.
“There was once a famous convent of nuns in the 17^th-18^th century, at the time of Jansenism, that was perfect, the nuns were said to be most pure, as pure as angels, but as proud as demons”, Pope Francis told as an anecdote, speaking off the cuff: “It is a really bad thing”. Pride, the Pope explained, “is the sin that divides fraternity, that makes us believe we are better than others, that makes us believe we are like God”. “But before God, we are all sinners and we have reason to beat our breasts, all of us, as that publican in the temple”, Pope Francis warned, citing the First Letter of St John: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”. “If you want to deceive yourself, say you have no sin”, the Pope continued off the cuff. “You are deceiving yourself”. “We are in debt first and foremost because we have received so much in this life”, Pope Francis continued: “Our life, our father, our mother, friends, the wonders of creation… Although it happens to us all to go through difficult times, we must always remember that life is a grace, it is the miracle that God created from nothing”.