Inside you are filled with plunder and evil

15 OCTOBER (Lk 11,37-41)

The man is skilled, expert in disguising. He knows how to hide evil, how make it pass for a great good, how to divert attention from it. Only by vision in spirit you can see the disguised, embellished and camouflaged evil in all its gravity. Often it is so hidden and lived in the inner walls that becomes impossible even in the eyes of the most dexterous and insightful being able to see it. Ezekiel sees all evil because he is led by the Lord in spirit into the innermost rooms of the temple.

Spirit lifted me up in the air and brought me in divine visions to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate, where stood the statue of jealousy which stirs up jealousy. He said to me: Son of man, look toward the north! I looked toward the north and saw northward of the gate the altar of the statue of jealousy. Son of man, he asked me, do you see what they are doing? Do you see the great abominations that the house of Israel is practicing here, so that I must depart from my sanctuary? But you shall see still greater abominations! Then he brought me to the entrance of the court, where I saw there was a hole in the wall. Son of man, he ordered, dig through the wall. I dug through the wall and saw a door. Enter, he said to me, and see the abominable evils which they are doing here. I entered and saw that all around upon the wall were pictured the figures of all kinds of creeping things and loathsome beasts (all the idols of the house of Israel). Before these stood seventy of the elders of the house of Israel, among whom stood Jaazaniah, son of Shaphan, each of them with his censer in his hand, and the fragrance of the incense was rising upward. Then he said to me: Do you see, son of man, what each of these elders of the house of Israel is doing in his idol room? They think: “The Lord cannot see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.”

He continued: You shall see still greater abominations that they are practicing. Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the temple, and I saw sitting there the women who were weeping for Tammuz. Then he said to me: Do you see this, son of man? You shall see other abominations, greater than these! Then he brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house, and there at the door of the Lord’s temple, between the vestibule and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the Lord’s temple and their faces toward the east; they were bowing down to the sun. Do you see, son of man? he asked me. Is it such a trivial matter for the house of Judah to do the abominable things they have done here – for they have filled the land with violence, and again and again they have provoked me – that now they must also put the branch to my nose? Therefore I in turn will act furiously: I will not look upon them with pity nor will I show mercy” (Ez 8,1-18).
Jesus sees the evil that lurks in the heart of every man. He sees it in all its gravity. He sees and reveals it. In front of his very powerful light of truth there are no secret chambers of the heart where it can hide. His vision of our evil is truer than that which we ourselves can have. For us, a great deal of evil is not even evil, so much lax is our conscience. Jesus, God and the Son of God, is the very truth God and with it he sees our history as it is, without any shadow or hiding place.

After he had spoken, a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home. He entered and reclined at table to eat. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal. The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.

Jesus does not wash his hands before sitting down at table. The Pharisee does not wash his heart. Jesus does not clean the outside of the glass, the Pharisee does not clean the interior. Jesus is with the pure, holy, just, free and poor heart. The Pharisee has a heart full of greed and wickedness. He is able to sell even the law of the Lord out of greed. He comes to the point of stoning, killing and harassing who does not think like him out of wickedness.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us pure at heart.