Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites

27 AUGUST (Mt 23,13-22)

God is eternal light, truth, justice, charity, mercy, forgiveness, divine holiness, and eternal communion. Every one of his “mediators”, young or old, of yesterday or of today, man or woman, with the ordained ministry or by charisma; must be a bearer of the great light of God to every man. Here’s how the prophet Isaiah proclaims the mission of the Mediator on any mediator. He is light and giver of light. He is holiness and bearer of holiness.

Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, Upon whom I have put my spirit; he shall bring forth justice to the nations, Not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street. A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench, Until he establishes justice on the earth; the coastlands will wait for his teaching. Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spreads out the earth with its crops, Who gives breath to its people and spirit to those who walk on it: I, the Lord, have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you, and set you as a covenant of the people, a light for the nations, To open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness. I am the Lord, this is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the earlier things have come to pass, new ones I now foretell; Before they spring into being, I announce them to you. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth: Let the sea and what fills it resound, the coastlands, and those who dwell in them.
I have looked away, and kept silence, I have said nothing, holding myself in; But now, I cry out as a woman in labor, gasping and panting. I will lay waste mountains and hills, all their herbage I will dry up; I will turn the rivers into marshes, and the marshes I will dry up. I will lead the blind on their journey; by paths unknown I will guide them. I will turn darkness into light before them, and make crooked ways straight. These things I do for them, and I will not forsake them. They shall be turned back in utter shame who trust in idols; Who say to molten images, “You are our gods.” You who are deaf, listen, you who are blind, look and see! Who is blind but my servant, or deaf like the messenger I send? You see many things without taking note; your ears are open, but without hearing. Though it pleased the Lord in his justice to make his law great and glorious, This is a people despoiled and plundered, all of them trapped in holes, hidden away in prisons. They are taken as booty, with no one to rescue them, as spoil, with no one to demand their return. Who of you gives ear to this? Who listens and pays heed for the time to come? Who was it that gave Jacob to be plundered, Israel to the despoilers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned? In his ways they refused to walk, his law they disobeyed. So he poured out wrath upon them, his anger, and the fury of battle; It blazed round about them, yet they did not realize, it burned them, but they took it not to heart. (Cf. Is 42,1-25).

Scribes and Pharisees, mediators and bearers of the light of God and his holiness, had become blind, givers and carriers of darkness, obscurity, deceit, and falsehood. Their teaching was useless, rather harmful. He was a teacher that closed the doors of the kingdom, instead of opening them. He drove away from God instead of bringing closer. He increased darkness instead clearing it. These were builders of universal, and cosmic blindness.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves. “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If one swears by the temple, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.’ Blind fools, which is greater, the gold, or the temple that made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If one swears by the altar, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gift on the altar, one is obligated.’ You blind ones, which is greater, the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? One who swears by the altar swears by it and all that is upon it; one who swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it; one who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who is seated on it.

When a person-light becomes a person-darkness, it is the end, total darkness.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels, and Saints save us in light.