We often forget that Jesus reprimands pretty hard at times in the Gospels.
As I’ve noticed, we tend to read these passages where Christ calls out the Pharisees and scribes, with our arms crossed as we say, “That’s right! Call ‘em out! The hypocrites!”
Then we go about our business sure that we are in no way like those arrogant, self-righteous Pharisees. Which means, we never take the time to see if what we believe is hypocritical.
The verse that stood out to me the most from our reading from the Gospel of Matthew was where Jesus says to the Pharisees and scribes, “You say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’”
Historical arrogance gets a lot of us in trouble.
“Well, *I* wouldn’t have been involved in the morally corrupt things of the past.”
“I wouldn’t have taken part in the genocide committed by the Nazis.”
If you in anyway support abortion, you support genocide. The murder of millions, no matter the method, is genocide.
“I would never have been a part of slavery.”
If you in anyway support pornography or even feel it’s no big deal, you support modern-day slavery in the form of sex trafficking.
“I would never be like the ignorant, uneducated folks of the past who ignored science and only followed their church.”
If you in anyway support the false and dangerous idea that men can be women and women can be men, you are ignoring biology.
“I’m a good Catholic, I just feel the Church gets somethings wrong in the area of morals.”
If you find that you believe your authority on matters trumps what the Church teaches, you are doing the same thing as the Protestant revolters.
We love to look back on people of the past and feel scorn for the practices they engaged in, but we do ourselves no favors by being blind to the modern-day ways we support immoral practices.
It’s the same old song, just a different tune, Catholic Pilgrims. We must check ourselves to make sure we are not being hypocrites. There is a bit of Pharisee and scribe in all of us. The only way to combat that is to be brutally honest with ourselves.
Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Wednesday.
