Our Lord in the Gospel this Sunday speaks about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who were
questioning Jesus, why he let his disciples eat their food without washing their hands.
As if that was something critical to observing God's law, but it was really just human tradition
that was developed with the Pharisees.
So we're talking about hypocrisy and our Lord says, this people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Our Lord's looking at our hearts.
What our intentions are.
What we love.
Not the superficial things about washing hands and doing external things that can really
hide what's in our heart.
We can be superficial.
This is what our Lord doesn't want.
He wants us to be men and women from the heart, living, having true substance to our Christian
faith, which involves love and obedience and a will.
These things go deep.
Our Lord's looking for that kind of thing, that kind of deep love for him and obedience
and commitment to his service.
And we develop that, of course, through prayer, through reflection and meditation and through
effort and striving to do God's will diligently, strongly, with all our heart.
These are the things that take real depth and strength.
Strength of our service to God.
To be strong like a tree, a tall and big tree that doesn't get blown over even in the hurricane
weather.
It's because their roots are really deep.
And this is what we should be thinking about, how to sink our roots real deep, our love
for God and total commitment to God takes real deep roots.
And we get that only through the means of grace, which are prayer and the sacraments
and Holy Mass.
These are the things we need to focus on, sinking our roots deep by praying well, praying
significantly, quality prayer, and doing everything from the heart, from the heart.
God looks at the heart, and the heart is what we should be nurturing, fostering, growing
and deepening.
And not these superficial things, which are passing and the will of the wisp, you know,
clouds of our external behavior that just come and go.
And it's all just fake and phony.
That's what a hypocrite is, someone who pretends to be something he's not.
Someone who just does things for other people to see.
And if we do hypocritical things so much in regard to religion, we can become a phony.
And if we do hypocritical things so much in regard to religion, we can become a phony.
And if we do hypocritical things so much in regard to religion, we can become a phony.
And the most fortunate of all is to become a fanatic.
Phonetics are really hypocrites to an extreme.
They just do everything for other people to see.
They just do everything for other people to see.
And maybe even the devil gets in there and talks to them and gives them visions and dreams,
and then they become real fanatics and really make a mockery of our Catholic faith.
That's what hypocrisy can do.
And it can just really turn our faith upside down and really turn people away from our
Catholic faith.
But our Catholic faith is��
faith is so deep and rich and and strong that if we hold on to it embrace it and live it fully with
all our life all our heart we can you know just just um perform perform so many good works for
people to see and so many profound uh actions of of charity for the world build so many things for
the kingdom of god here on earth and for for our our lord's kingdom we can do so many good
things with the with our catholic faith it's not so much us it's god of course god working in us
god performing these things through us because of our cooperation because of our prayer life
because of our humility and allowing god to work through us and not letting pride take over us
pride is always trying to make other people
think
that we're holy and good and virtuous and advancing ourselves and that feeds hypocrisy
that feeds this kind of phony life superficial life and doing everything in an external way
and you know with our catholic faith it's not hard to do that because our catholic faith is
made up of external and internal things and that's the beauty of our faith we're both external and
internal we have a body and we have a heart and a soul and we have to use both
reflection
both of them but the pitfall is that we can just use our body we can just make signs of the cross
finger our rosary be physically present at mass do these you know go on processions and go and visit
these sites of apparitions and do all these external things you know and get caught up in
that and think that's everything and you know just go from one thing to another and just be caught up
in a superficial life we can do that even with our holy catholic faith you know even as a friar
is even as religious we can be caught up in the externals you know i got my habit i got my routine
i got my schedule to follow and i just get caught up in it and i am this is my career and i'm all
settled i got everything provided for me and it's just an exterior superficial life that we have to
answer for instead we need to live from the heart of God and we need to live from the heart of God
we need to live from the heart we need to live all these external things from the heart these
external things are good and holy and helpful but we have to put the heart and soul into it
the substance the substance of our heart and our obedience to our our duties our schedule are the
commandments of God obedience that will obedience out of love for God doing this all to please God
make God happy and pleased to let him exercise his dominion over the world and our life and our
family and our society let him do everything in us we're just that little mustard seed
that little grain of wheat we're only this little thing this little ant you know
walking this earth and God is performing great things through us because of our littleness
which we have to maintain be humble
stay stay that way and let God do great things but in our littleness we can have a big heart
we can have a big heart that God just pours forth his grace there and does great things through us
because of our willingness our cooperation our docility our prayers our our efforts our
striving to be holy and to do what God wants us to do and this is substance this is the interior
life and this is the interior life and this is the interior life and this is the interior life
we need to foster especially the interior life of grace and be real be genuine be true blue Catholics
Christians lovers of God we need to be genuine authentic and that takes depth that takes roots
that takes real a real prayer life a real striving and effort to live the life of the heart and love
for God love is genuine love is deep and sacrificial
love is genuine love is deep and sacrificial and generous and that's what we need to foster
and generous and that's what we need to foster
and generous and that's what we need to foster and we need to look at the the pitfalls we need
and we need to look at the the pitfalls we need
and we need to look at the the pitfalls we need to look at the superficial things that we do
to look at the the pitfalls we need to look at the superficial things that we do
to look at the the pitfalls we need to look at the superficial things that we do and we need to correct them and
and we need to look at the superficial things that we do and we need to correct them and
and we need to look at the superficial things that we do and we need to correct them and believe them and and you know
to believe them and and you know
to believe them and and you know turn them into substance turn them into
and fake and be phony and and try to make people think that we are something we're not we need to
be real and real genuine christians and real lovers of god and lovers of of our our neighbor
and so this is what we need to seek out and not be like the pharisees not be like the you know the
typical politician might who might just try to deceive the people and make them think that they
are what they're not and just this fanfare and this these words but live life of our deeds and
a genuine true obedience to god's commandments and reaching out to do really good for the world
and to reach out to foster the kingdom of god so we can trust this this intention our resolutions
to our lady to make us real christians real catholics real genuine men of
of
of
of
of substance, of love of God, and neighbor,
and to live a holy life,
to live a masterpiece of God's work in us
through Our Lady's working in our soul
and trusting everything to her and working hard,
being those busy bees, those busy ants that we are,
and letting Our Lady do everything through us
with our cooperation.
© transcript Emily Beynon