Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. 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. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’ Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out!”
REFLECTION
"on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing."
The world, as we see it, is disfigured by sin. God is preparing a new dwelling place and is inviting us to have a home full of righteousness and happiness that satisfies our yearnings of peace. Our hearts will be satisfied as we see Christ; love and its fruits will be set free.
As we pray and draw closer to God, we become more aware of our frailty and our dependence upon God's graces to resist sin and grow in holiness.
St Philip Neri said, "Lord, keep thy hand this day over Philip; if thou do not, Philip will betray thee.” Only through our awareness of what we can and have done will we find the humility to understand that without God sustaining us by grace, any of us is capable of failing.
Pray for God's merciful grace for ourselves, family, priests, enemies, the homeless, the addicted, the abandoned, the ill and the estranged to be rid of hypocrisy and evildoing, not to appear as righteous, but truly being righteous in the eyes of God.
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