Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!

28 AUGUST (Mt 23,23-36)

The life of a man is the fruit of all the truth that dwells in his heart. Falsehood is more than a viper’s venom. Falsehood kills more than a poisonous snake bite.

Do you indeed speak righteousness, O gods? Do you judge uprightly, O sons of men? No, in heart you work unrighteousness; On earth you weigh out the violence of your hands. The wicked are estranged from the womb; These who speak lies go astray from birth. They have venom like the venom of a serpent; Like a deaf cobra that stops up its ear, So that it does not hear the voice of charmers, Or a skillful caster of spells. O God, shatter their teeth in their mouth; Break out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD. Let them flow away like water that runs off; When he aims his arrows, let them be as headless shafts. Let them be as a snail which melts away as it goes along, Like the miscarriages of a woman which never see the sun. Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike. The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; He will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. And men will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous; Surely there is a God who judges on earth!” (Psalm 58 (57) 1-12).

Not only do, those who do not know the true God; live a life of lies and falsehoods. Much more can dwell in lies and falsehoods the people of the Lord. When this happens it is as if the sun went out, and the earth were enveloped by huge darkness.

For they are a people devoid of reason, having no understanding. If they had insight they would realize what happened, they would understand their future and say, “How could one man rout a thousand, or two men put ten thousand to flight, Unless it was because their Rock sold them and the Lord delivered them up?” Indeed, their “rock” is not like our Rock, and our foes are under condemnation. They are a branch of Sodom’s vine stock, from the vineyards of Gomorrah. Poisonous are their grapes and bitter their clusters. Their wine is the venom of dragons and the cruel poison of cobras. “Is not this preserved in my treasury, sealed up in my storehouse, Against the day of vengeance and requital, against the time they lose their footing?” Close at hand is the day of their disaster and their doom is rushing upon them! (Dt 32,28-35).

If then the source of falsehood, darkness, ethical and moral obscurity are precisely the mediators of the divine light and eternal truth; then, there is no longer real salvation for anyone. Light comes into a heart from light. The light of God must flood the earth through human mediation. However, if the mediator becomes darkness, then it is universal death.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. (But) these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’ Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out! You serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that there may come upon you all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the righteous blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Amen, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

At the time of Jesus, truly, really, the light had turned into thick darkness. The men-light had become bearers of a great thick darkness. The truth of God was gone. However, proclaimed and preached human falsehood, taught as pure divine light had taken over its place. It was this falsehood what killed Jesus Christ, who was sentenced to death by virtue of it. It is always falsehood that kills the true prophets of God and creates an infinite multitude of martyrs. Always and wherever the light of the Lord is brought there is religious darkness that wants to extinguish it at all costs.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels, and Saints free us from all falsehood.