12 February 2019
Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Hypocrisy is one of the things that Jesus frequently speaks out against, and it’s often directed to the Pharisees. Quoting the prophet Isaiah, he tells them, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” If we are honest about our own lives, I think we’ll find that in certain ways, in certain aspects, these words can apply to us too. That’s to say, our hearts can be divided. We may say we love God above all else, but deep inside, choose honor, money, attention before choosing him.
If in spite of knowing this we stand before God, before ourselves, and before others as if this weren’t so, then we truly are hypocrites. But if we turn to God with our deficiencies and our divided heart and ask him to help us to love him better, then we will be doing something that pleases God, allowing him to be our Lord, our healer.
Honesty is the gateway to a spiritual encounter. The truth sets us free.