You are like unseen graves

Rm 2,1-11; Ps 61; Lk 11,42-46
16 OCTOBER

If we wanted to say with one word what the religion of the Pharisees and the scribes consists of, the most appropriate word is substitution. They have replaced God’s eternal law with their human traditions. Obedience to the Commandments with the observance of the precepts of the earth. The cult of the adhesion of the mind and heart to the divine will with the offering of animal sacrifices without number and endless prayers. Justice, mercy, truth, the sanctity of life with the tithe of some aromatic herbs. The beauty of the soul and of the spirit, of the heart and of the mind with the cleaning of their skin. The communion among men founded on the holiness of God with some relations of hypocrisy, lies, vanity and superficiality. In a word: God was replaced with men, heaven with earth, truth with falsehood, grace with sin, light with darkness, mercy with ruthless judgment, divine revelation with thoughts of the mind. Nothing was left of the true God and true religion, of the true Word and of true Scripture. Man had taken the place of God. He had become God, but he used the name of God to govern every mind and every heart with his will.

Among the falsehoods and lies of the religion of the scribes and the Pharisees there is one that requires some minor reflection. Jesus says to them: “You are like those tombs that are not seen and people pass over them without knowing it”. These words could mean little or nothing for us. For the contemporaries of Jesus and for the scribes and Pharisees themselves they are of a unique gravity. Their contact makes men impure and they do not even know it. They are impure, they remain impure, they do not even do anything to purify themselves, because they do not know to be impure. Anyone who approaches a Pharisee, a scribe, becomes impure of falsehood, hypocrisy, lies and transgression of the Law of the Lord but without any awareness of the spiritual state in which his soul and his heart, his mind and his spirit pour. This truth is similar to the other: “You, hypocrites Pharisees, turn the earth and the sea to make a single proselyte and once you get him you make him become double the child of Gehenna”. You make him so impure as to be sent into the eternal hell more than you yourself. Tombs on which we pass and we are ready for hell, without even knowing it. This is surely the religion of perdition and not of salvation.

Woe to you Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb, but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. These you should have done, without overlooking the others. Woe to you Pharisees! You love the seat of honour in synagogues and greetings in marketplaces. Woe to you! You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.” Then one of the scholars of the law said to him in reply, “Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too.” And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.

Jesus puts before the scribes’ eyes their total absence of love and compassion for men. They load men with unbearable weights and do not even touch those weights with a finger. The good teacher in Israel first brings him every weight and then will know well how to act with people, using that gradualness that comforts and is always the creator of all hope. Jesus did this. He has observed all the Law. He became obedient to the Father until he died on the cross. He can invite his disciples to deny themselves, to take each one his own cross and follow him. The cross of every disciple will never be his cross. His was a cross of innocence. Ours a cross of sin. His was ours. Ours is ours, even if we can unite it to his for the redemption of the world. In his teaching Christ Jesus never put one thought of his own. What his father told him to say, He said it. What  he told him not to say, He did not say. Everything He has said he has always done it. His exemplariness was always very perfect. What he says for scribes and Pharisees is valid for every one of his disciples. We must all pay attention so that the religion of his Father is not replaced by ours.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, arrange that every Christian remains in the Word of Jesus.