Church attendance must be accompanied by good Christian deeds otherwise the parishioner becomes a “parrot” who only indulges in prayer but does no virtuous deeds in service to God, Pope Francis said.
“If I say I'm Catholic and every Sunday I go to mass but then I don't talk to my parents, I don't help my grandparents, the poor, I don't visit the sick, then there's no point,” Francis told the faithful in Guidonia Montecelio on Sunday. “In that way, we’re nothing but a Christian parrot: words, words, words.”
“I wonder if you remember that song?,” Pope asked, adding that bearing witness to the faith requires “word, heart and hands” to do God's work, such as spent time with family.
The pontiff admitted that he himself at “certain times” also had “moments of darkness” in his faith forcing his beliefs to be “decreased a lot.”
“Some days we can't see faith, everything is in darkness,” but with a little bit of time, Francis said “we rediscover it.”
“We understand that there is darkness, we must respect this darkness of the soul. We don't study to get faith, we receive it like a gift,” the Pope explained.