The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today exhort us to meditate on the Word and seek appreciation of the Presence of God in people and places we encounter on our journey.
Present in the Word
The reading from the First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians declares Paul’s ministry among them and his thanksgiving for their reception of the Word of God.
“not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word,”1
Psalm 139 praises the Inescapable God.
* [Psalm 139] A hymnic meditation on God’s omnipresence and omniscience. The psalmist is keenly aware of God’s all-knowing gaze (Ps 139:1–6), of God’s presence in every part of the universe (Ps 139:7–12), and of God’s control over the psalmist’s very self (Ps 139:13–16). Summing up Ps 139:1–16, 17–18 express wonder. There is only one place hostile to God’s rule—wicked people. The psalmist prays to be removed from their company (Ps 139:19–24).2
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus explains ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”
* [23:13–36] This series of seven “woes,” directed against the scribes and Pharisees and addressed to them, is the heart of the speech. The phrase woe to occurs often in the prophetic and apocalyptic literature, expressing horror of a sin and punishment for those who commit it. Hypocrites: see note on Mt 6:2. The hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees consists in the difference between their speech and action (Mt 23:3) and in demonstrations of piety that have no other purpose than to enhance their reputation as religious persons (Mt 23:5).3
Thomas Lenz reflects that in Psalm 139, is the notion that God is everywhere. This stuck out for him because there seems to be so much suffering going on in the world these days and it begs the question, “Is God really there?” There is suffering in Haiti with the recent earthquake, suffering in Afghanistan as the Taliban takes over the country, and continued suffering in nearly every country on the planet as the COVID-19 virus and its variants surge again. So many of us ask, “If God is good, how can God allow so much suffering?”
God is everywhere – even when we try to hide. God is closer to us than our next breath during the good, the bad, and the ugly. Embracing the notion that God is incarnate in all that we know helps me to “know” in a way that is beyond my thinking mind. During our suffering and the suffering of the world, I pray that God helps us to “know” is a way that can transform the suffering in a movement towards love. May we all be present in thought and prayer for those suffering throughout the world.4
Don Schwager quotes “Good deeds done for God,” by author unknown, from the 5th century A.D.
"Every good deed that is done for God is universally good for everything and everyone. Deeds that are not seen to benefit everything and everyone, however, are done on account of man, as the present matter itself demonstrates. For example, those who build reliquaries and adorn churches seem to be doing good. If they imitate the justice of God, if the poor benefit from their goods and if they do not acquire their goods through violence against others, it is clear that they are building for the glory of God. If they fail to observe God's justice... and if the poor never benefit from their goods and if they acquire their goods from others by means of violence or fraud, who is so foolish not to understand that they are building for human respect rather than for the glory of God? Those who build reliquaries in a just manner ensure that the poor do not suffer as a result of it. For the martyrs do not rejoice when they are honored by gifts for which the poor paid with their tears. What kind of justice is it to give gifts to the dead and to despoil the living or to drain blood from the poor and offer it to God? To do such things is not to offer sacrifice to God but to attempt to make God an accomplice in violence, since whoever knowingly accepts a gift which was acquired by sinful means participates in the sin." (excerpt from an incomplete Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, HOMILY 45)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 23:27-32 comments that Jesus knows how easy it is to fall into a trap similar to the one that ensnared these religious leaders. He knows how much we try to look as if we have it all together, like the way we may put on a serene face even though we’re seething about an argument we had in the car on the way to church. He also knows we might say or do things just to appear righteous when we know we’re hiding some kind of sin. So he marked the “tombs” of his opponents’ hypocrisy to make sure we don’t veer too close to the same thing.
Take a lesson, then, from the whitewash Jesus put on the Pharisees and scribes. Listen for God’s voice in your conscience and pay attention to the warnings he gives you. Bring your heart to the one who can clean you from the inside. Then the outside will take care of itself. “Lord, help me to be on the alert for your warnings so that I can see and avoid hypocrisy in myself.”6
Friar Jude Winkler outlines the position of Paul in the Thessalonian community. Paul expresses both motherly, unconditional love, and fatherly encouraging love to the community. Friar Jude reminds us of “Second Matthew” who may have been a converted Pharisee, banished from the Temple.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, opened his book, “The Universal Christ” with a lengthy quote from Catholic mystic and artist Caryll Houselander [1901–1954]. She describes riding the subway and seeing Christ permeating and radiating from all her fellow passengers.
Quite suddenly I saw with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all. But I saw more than that; not only was Christ in every one of them, living in them, dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them—but because He was in them, and because they were here, the whole world was here too . . . all those people who had lived in the past, and all those yet to come. I came out into the street and walked for a long time in the crowds. It was the same here, on every side, in every passer-by, everywhere—Christ. [1]7
As we meet and greet today, we have the opportunity to pause and see Christ in all people and places.
Attendum
Pope Francis, speaking today, said that hypocrites are people who pretend, flatter and deceive because they live with a mask over their faces and do not have the courage to face the truth. For this reason, they are not capable of truly loving: a hypocrite does not know how to love. They limit themselves to living out of egoism and do not have the strength to show their hearts transparently.
Hypocrisy in the Church is particularly detestable; and unfortunately, hypocrisy exists in the Church and there are many hypocritical Christians and ministers. We should never forget the Lord’s words: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil” (Mt 5:37). Brothers and sisters, today, let us think about the hypocrisy that Paul condemns, and that Jesus condemns: hypocrisy. And let us not be afraid to be truthful, to speak the truth, to hear the truth, to conform ourselves to the truth, so we can love. A hypocrite does not know how to love. To act other than truthfully means jeopardising the unity of the Church, that unity for which the Lord Himself prayed.8
References
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