Memorial of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Today’s Gospel can appear quite harsh at first glance and indeed our Lord desires to get our attention. Jesus issues a summons to take off our religious masks and to live authentically the Gospel of love. Christ’s words are not words of condemnation, but rather a plea to change our ways and follow him passionately and completely. He invites us to repentance and to walk with him free of hypocrisy as sons and daughters of the living God.
Our passage comes at the end of a larger discourse sometimes called “the Seven Woes.” If you have time, I encourage you to read the entire passage, Matthew 23:1-32. It’s important to note that Jesus is speaking to the crowds and to his disciples (vs 1). While he calls out the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, Christ speaks to each of us. Reading Jesus’ words can feel like a tongue-lashing. You may find yourself wincing as you read these seven exhortations. The term woe, however, as it’s used in the original language, is a term of lament, not of judgment. Jesus mourns over the religious leaders and their hypocrisy. You might return to the text and read it again imagining Jesus’ mournful tone and demeanor. Listen as our Lord pours out his heart in lament, heart-broken over the attitudes and behavior of those who profess to serve God. Listen as our Lord cries out to you and to me, imploring us to rid ourselves of anything that lacks authenticity, anything that is disconnected or incongruent in our attitudes and our actions. I hear Jesus practically weeping as he exhorts us, in essence saying, please, please wake up and recognize what you’re doing that’s contrary to my Gospel.
Jesus’ repeatedly refers to the religious leaders as hypocrites. The word hypocrite comes from the Greek and means “play-acting.” Originally it was a technical term referring to stage actors. In ancient Greek theater, the actors, the hypocrites, wore masks to distinguish themselves as the character they portrayed. Sometimes one actor played many different parts in one play, and the actors changed masks each time they appeared as a new character. The word has come to be used for anyone who puts on a false appearance of virtue or moral goodness (a mask) while inside the person harbors evil or negative thoughts and attitudes. Hypocrites engage in the same thoughts and behaviors for which they openly criticize others. They fail to follow their own expressed core values and moral or religious code.
Our responsorial today comes from Psalm 139. Again, I encourage you to read it in its entirety if you have time. Such a beautiful, soaring song acknowledging with awe and wonder how intimately our God knows each one of us. The psalm begins, O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. The body of the psalm contains glorious affirmations of God’s intimate love and pursuit. The psalm ends with these words: Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Let’s make these verses our prayer today, asking God to shine the light of God’s truth into our hearts and our minds. Let us pray with courage and humility, willing and receptive to that light as it reveals our hidden motives and any hypocrisy. And then let us run into the forgiving arms of Jesus confessing our sins and receiving his mercy and forgiveness. Perhaps this would be a good week to make time for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We could bring our hypocrisy before the Lord and experience the liberating freedom the sacrament brings.
Today is the Memorial of St Augustine. Yesterday was the Memorial of St Monica, his mother. She prayed for years for her son to repent and turn to God. He was hardened in his sin a long time until one day he heard God’s voice calling him to take up God’s Word. It was the day that changed his life completely. Let us not be hardened or stubborn. Let us be not only open to God’s voice, but eagerly listening. Today, let us pray the words from Psalm 139, and allow God to search us completely, fully opening the ears of our hearts. Come, Lord Jesus, come.
- Elizabeth Wourms