In the Gospel, our Lord leaves no stone unturned.
The eternal word of the Father became the incarnate word to speak the truth of God,
and not only to speak the truth, but to make it possible that that truth would be alive in us.
So he taught his disciples, and then he suffered for the truth.
And as the word of God, he was offered to the Father as a sacrifice for our sins.
So that now the word of God penetrates, not only hear it, but it enters into our hearts,
and it changes our hearts, hopefully, by God's grace.
We are changed by the word that we have received, and by the sacraments that we receive,
especially our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.
So in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we hear the word preached,
and the word enters into our minds.
And then we receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament,
and our bodies and our souls are being nourished,
so that together this work of Christ penetrates and is assimilated and changes us.
Sometimes we need to be delivered from a state of sin.
Amen.
So the Lord came and he made it very clear that he wasn't coming to abolish the law,
but to fulfill it.
And he even raised the bar, he raised the standard.
As we have heard during this week,
our Lord not only condemned adultery, as the Ten Commandments do,
but he condemned even looking at a woman with lust.
So he raised the bar.
And he sets up as the standard,
the real standard,
not just the commandments,
but his own love,
by which he became one of us and shared himself with us,
and then offered himself upon the cross.
And as I say, he leaves no stone unturned,
because it's not just enough to repent of our sins
and enter into the life of grace.
Because very often what our Lord was doing was not only correcting the sinners,
the prostitutes and tax collectors,
he was also correcting those who were presumably following the law of God.
And so that's what we hear today.
Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that other peoples may see.
When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues.
When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites who stand,
who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners.
When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
And so we've gotten this idea of hypocrisy,
from this group of individuals that were known as the hypocrites.
And it is sort of a false kind of observance of religion.
It may include observance of the commandments,
like the hypocrite who stood in the synagogue and said,
Thank God I'm not like the rest of men, not like this one, this publican.
I fast and I pray, etc., etc.
So much so is this true that our Lord on occasion, more than once,
said that the...
the prostitutes and the tax collectors would be entering the kingdom of God
before these others.
Because sometimes religion can become false.
It can become empty.
It can become a sham, a shell of what it's meant to be.
Because ultimately, our holy religion is meant to change our hearts
so that we are really living in the service of God and of our neighbor,
recognizing...
recognizing the total gratuity of God's grace,
gratuitousness of God's grace,
recognizing His mercy
and the generosity with which He has loved us,
which can only be matched or responded to
with as much generosity as we have to offer.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus, following St. John of the Cross,
says love is repaid by love alone.
And therefore,
you know,
we look at the crucifix
and we need to see the way our Lord has loved us
and then return that love
and bestow it upon others as well.
And if we have that spirit,
then we will always be...
we will always recognize our lowliness,
always recognize the grace that God has given us,
always recognize the need for us to repent.
And then when we speak the truth,
when we try to imitate Christ,
when we try to spread the...
when we try to imitate the gospel,
then we will have that genuine, sincere spirit
that is a light that shines before men.
The hypocrites had religion,
but they didn't have the light.
People would look at them
and they knew that they bound up heavy burdens
for men to carry,
but would not lift the burden themselves.
They, you know, people could see through them
because ultimately it wasn't sincere.
You know, if we're sincere,
we should be penitent.
You know, we should always be seeking conversion.
And when we are, as our Lord says,
removing the beam from our own eyes,
then we will be able to remove the splinter
from our brother's eye.
And that was part of the point of our Lord.
If you think about the analogy he uses,
he's saying you're looking at the faults of other people
and in reality,
all they really have is a splinter
when in fact what you have is a beam.
I mean, they may have problems,
but you are far more blind than they are
if you think you've solved everything
and you're prepared to solve everybody else's problems.
So that's a warning and an admonishment to us
who are trying to follow the path
that our Lord has put us on.
The path that he has put us on,
our holy religion and the graces have received
should make us more humble,
and more penitent,
and more able to be an instrument of Christ
for the conversion and sanctification of others.
St. Francis put it this way to the friars.
He said,
don't judge and despise those who go off
and soften fine garments and eat fine foods.
He said,
rather judge and despise yourself.
And anyone who has the spirit of penance
will try to do the same.
He will try to cultivate that disposition.
It's the dispositions of our Lord
who had no sin
and yet who poured himself out for sinners.
May we recognize what our Lord is trying to tell us
and live it this day
as we begin our day
by receiving our Lord in the Eucharist.
Let's pray.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.