Tuesday, August 23, 2016 21st Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading: 2 Thes 2: 1-3a. 14-17 Gospel: Matthew 23:23-26
Jesus said, “Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You do not forget the mint, anise and cumin seeds when you pay the tenth of everything, but then you forget what is most fundamental in the Law: justice, mercy and faith. These you must practice, without neglecting the others. Blind guides! You strain out a mosquito, but swallow a camel.
“Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You fill the plate and the cup with theft and violence, and then pronounce a blessing over them. Blind Pharisee! Purify the inside first, then the outside too will be purified.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
Cebuanos must be finding hypocrisy too overwhelming that they use not one but three words to describe it. “Tigpaka Aron Ingnon” literally means one who habitually pretends in order to be taken for who he is not. The first letters are T.A.I., which taken as a word sounds like the Cebuano term for human and animal waste. The hypocrite might even be more smelly!
Jesus describes hypocrisy as being as meticulous as straining out a mosquito but swallowing a camel. It means putting greater attention on negligible matters where appearances are at stake even though doing so necessitates dismissing important issues. The trouble with hypocrisy is that while one’s deportment is programed to indicate inner virtues, something smelly lies beneath.
Hypocrites are like doughnuts aptly described as “nothing surrounded by something”. They surround themselves with lots of beautiful things but at the heart of all these is nothing but emptiness. It’s difficult to tell at first glance who hypocrites are because they excel in image re-engineering. They can be the rumor- mongers disguised as your very hospitable host who “feast on you” after you have left. Their rumor -mongering leaves a disgusting taste in your mouth that not even the good memory of their hospitality can mitigate. They can even be the churchgoers piously taking communion by their tongue and using later the same tongue to malign others.
Cebuanos have captured the nature of hypocrisy in the three words they have coined to describe a hypocrite. Just as the smelly word lies hidden in the acronym formed by the first letters of “Tigpaka Aron Ingnon”, so hypocrite people are often successful in hiding their true odor from their victims. But they cannot hide from God who will vomit the hypocrite (Rev. 3:15). While the hypocrite can swallow a camel (Mt. 23:24), God cannot swallow hypocrisy. –(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM, MMExM, MAPM, REB. Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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