A reason to rejoice - and to try harder

Wednesday in the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle I

1Thes 2, 9-13; Mt 23, 27-32

Today's gospel is one which is hard to preach on and even harder to live. The tough words of Jesus contrast with the often sweet - or sometimes the artificially sweetened - way in which we portray Jesus in some of our paintings and holy pictures. I often feel that we have "domesticated" Jesus such that we have lost the power of his words which never allow us to remain as we are but always impel us to change.

This is not the first time that he uses these hard words. When Jesus uses the words "woe to you," it is not because he does not want to be gentle and kind but because he wants to show us the seriousness of our mistakes. He uses this expression seven times in this part of the gospel where he addresses the pharisees but he also uses the same words when he laments Chorazaim and Bethsaida. When Jesus uses these words, they are words of strong emotion, regret, sorrow. With these words, it is as though Jesus is saying that he is seeing the bad effects of our deeds on ourselves. They are not words of discouragement, rather they are revealing words. They are kind words because they show us the truth that we are missing because of our shortsightedness.

But the reason why this Gospel is so hard to preach and to live is because Jesus is revealing to us our own hypocrisy, our tendency to put up a good front, while in our hearts something else is going on. Obviously, Jesus is not asking us to remove the good front! He is asking us to change our internal attitudes and dispositions so that our inside too may be as good as outward expression. In other words, he wants us to make sure that our outward expression is truly a reflection of the goodness that there is in our hearts.

Now what if we realize that Jesus might indeed be addressing us, and that we too might sometimes fall into the category that Jesus is so severely criticizing, what must we do? First, we must rejoice, because that means that we form part of the human race, which has a tendency to do this mistake! But more importantly, we must rejoice because we are have become aware of something that perhaps we had not noticed before. The greatest woe would be never to realize our own mistakes and persist in our hypocrisy. Second, we must see what we can do to amend our lives. When we become aware of our weaknesses, we grow in the virtue of humility and we become more understanding of the failings of our brothers and sisters. A good confession helps too. Finally, we must keep in mind the words of St Paul to the Romans "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good!"