From the responsorial psalm: “Blessed are you who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways! For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork; blessed shall you be, and favored. Blessed are those who fear the Lord.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 23:27-32)
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.”
Jesus continues to denounce the scribes and the Pharisees with a series of woes, expressing grief over self-obsessed religious leaders who are guilty of hypocrisy and murderous intentions. Like the scribes and Pharisees, God made all of us in his image, pure and beautiful. Yet, sin corrupts and death destroys that image, producing “dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.” Jesus calls the scribes and Pharisees—and all who hear him—away from false displays of virtue and toward conversion, back to the beauty and goodness by which God first formed us in the image of love. As Saint Augustine said, “Inasmuch as love grows in you, so in you beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.”
God, the harsh words that Jesus directed to the scribes and Pharisees are not isolated in time and space but are for all people across the ages. Guide me away from false piety and show me Jesus your Son, present in the scriptures, in the real presence of the sacraments, and in the Body of Christ, the Church. That is where genuine relationship is, in the truth of the person of Christ. For the sake of your glory, Lord, open my eyes to my own shortcomings and make clear to me today how to turn to you more and more. Saint Augustine, pray for us!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.