But inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence

26 AUGUST (Mt 23,23-26)

It is easy to become attached to external things. It is easy to celebrate a wonderful liturgy made of sounds, songs, endless signs, many gestures, perfect ceremonies, incense, candles, chasubles, Dalmatians and sumptuous vestments embroidered in gold. It is easy to untie long processions. It is easy to participate in meetings, conferences, thunder from the stage, from microphones, from professorships. All external things are easy and are often enriched to hide the inner poverty that motivates us, consumes us and wears us out.

One day I accompanied one of my brothers for the choice of a chasuble to be worn on the day of his priestly ordination. The head of the house said something that left us breathless: “You, priests, the more you are empty inside and the more you embellish yourselves out. I work to hide your spiritual void.” I was speechless. I kept silent and did not open my mouth any more. I did not see myself in her harsh and bitter sentence. However, that woman was able to grasp things that we no longer even see. She saw the emptiness in many of us and worked to hide it. But can you hide the internal emptiness with a vestment of luxury? Can it truly be abolished with some fine chasuble?

Today, Jesus speaks very clearly to the scribes and Pharisees. They are of the outward religion. They pay the tithes of mint, dill and cumin. They flaunt long prayers. They live a cult made up of exciting appearance. They lengthen fringes. They have an almost divine behaviour. But their heart is sodden, dirty and filthy. They filter out the gnat in external things. Woe to forget a bow. It disturbs the beauty of the liturgy. But the camel of immorality, injustice, wickedness of heart and mind is swallowed. Love of the brethren, welcoming of sinners and search for the lost sheep are abolished. They rob the houses of widows and of simple people in the name of religion, eternal life ad paradise.

What good is to clean the outside of the cup when there is deadly venom in it? What is the use of making beautiful liturgies when participants come with a heart full of hate, resentment and do not even give each other the sign of peace? What use is it to create a false communion with Christ even when one feigns to create an appearance of communion with the brothers? T he man is the way of God. The truth of our relationship with God is given by the truth of our relationship with the brothers. If the brothers are not in our hearts, not even God lives there. Where God dwells peace, love, mercy, pity, compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation, search always of the highest obedience to every word that came out of the mouth of our Lord and God, reign.

“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.

You cannot build our religion on hypocrisy, deception and on pure externality. Through the prophet Malachi, the Lord expresses disgust for such worship. For him it is better to close the doors of our churches, rather than offer a false worship, the result of a false heart, a false mind and of a soul where sin reigns. It is right that we also ask ourselves. It is always a healthy thing to do a complete examination of conscience. If we discover that our heart is unclean in something, it is right that before we approach the altar of the Lord, we purify it. When the heart is pure, the whole cult is pure. It is pleasing to God, even if it is offered in the most simple, most miserable and most poor way. The heart is what must be full of forgiveness, justice, and mercy. When the heart is full of God, outward things lose their meaning and their importance. Even a rag is pleasing to the Lord when the heart is holy.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us with a pure and holy heart.