Click here for today’s Scripture readings.

2 Thes1:1-5, 11-12
Mt 23:13-22

When we look at the four Gospels, we see that Jesus was a very compassionate and caring person to everyone who came into his life. He reached out with healing and comfort and forgiveness to all. Many times ignoring the social barriers and teaching of his time, he invited everyone into the Kingdom of God.

But the one group of persons Jesus seemed to speak harshly to were the scribes and Pharisees. These were the Jewish religious leaders in the time of Christ, and so you would think that they would naturally demand a certain respect. But Jesus accuses them of the sin of hypocrisy. He accuses them of saying one thing and then living another way. He accuses them of the lack of personal integrity. He accuses them of distorting the main purpose of religion, which is to bring everyone to the worship of the One true God.

Today’s Gospel spells out Jesus’ problem with the scribes and the Pharisees, which is their distortion of Jewish law and their own self-styled elitism in religious affairs.

The Gospel raises the question about our approach to our Catholic beliefs and practices. Do we do the things we should because we believe they are true expressions of our faith and love of God? Or do we pick and choose what is convenient for us and to our liking, ignoring the more difficult truths. Are we “cafeteria Catholics” who want to define our Catholic faith our way, ignoring how Jesus through his church continues to guide us today?

Pope John Paul II in one of his homilies said, “Subjectivism is the soil in which egoism grows. Both subjectivism and egoism are inimical to love—in the first place because love has an objective orientation towards the person and the good of the person, and in the second place, because love is altruistic towards the other.” So if we are not Christ-like in loving our brothers and sisters in the Father and all that entails, we are like the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees that Jesus condemns in the Gospel today.

Fr. Richard Nalepa, CP is the Vicar of Immaculate Conception Monastery in Jamaica, N.Y.

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