Took counsel against him to put him to death.

WEDNESDAY 22 JANUARY (Mk 3,1-6)

Between the religion taught by scribes and Pharisees and the one preached and lived by Christ Jesus there is the same abyss that separates light from darkness and heaven from hell. Might the two religions live together? They could live together if there were no diaspora from the religion of the Pharisees to the religion of Christ Jesus. They could stay together if the religion of Jesus was not an explicit condemnation of the religion of the scribes and Pharisees. We know that Jesus openly condemns this religion and their believers. It is enough to listen to even a few of the “woes” against them and it will be understood that no cohabitation might ever reign, provided that the exodus towards Christ Jesus is not permitted: “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, 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” (Cfr. 23,1-39). These are not marginal and not even interpretations questions. Instead they are problems of essence, substance and truth.

Pharisees scribes have hasty methods to resolve disputes: legally eliminating those who carry a new thought. What the Evangelist Mark reports “And the Pharisees immediately went out with the Herodians and held counsel against him to kill him” is also reported by the Evangelists Matthew and Luke:  “But the Pharisees went out and took counsel against him to put him to death. When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place” (Mt 12,14-15). “But they became enraged and discussed together what they might do to Jesus” (Lk 6,11). It is evident that these are decisions of sin and not of eternal wisdom. Whoever is governed by divine wisdom must always carry out a great discernment. He must abandon what is less true to embrace the truer, the less good to adhere to what is better. He must also leave what is best to welcome the very best. This law applies to every man, every religion, every culture, every science and every scientific or profane thought. Since God is the utmost good, the utmost light, the utmost truth and the utmost justice and holiness, welcoming the utmost and letting oneself be led by it is the obligation of man, not of a man, but of man, of the creature made by God in his image.

Again he entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand. They watched him closely to see if he would cure him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. He said to the man with the withered hand, “Come up here before us.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” But they remained silent. Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.

No law, either of God or of men, might ever forbid doing good. There are no days where one can abstain from doing good. The good must always be done well, to all, without any distinction. Why does this divine and eternal law annoy the Pharisees? Because they should have confessed that the doctrine of Jesus is better than theirs. In doing so they would have had to recognize Jesus as the true Master in Israel. Doing this would have meant losing their authority. They choose to kill Jesus.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints arrange that every Christian always chooses the purest truth.