Hypocrisy

Friday,
September 13, 2019
23rd Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: 1 Tim 1:1-2, 12-14
Gospel: Lk 6:39-42
Jesus offered this example, “Can a blind person lead another blind person? Surely both will fall into a ditch. A disciple is not above the master; but when fully trained, he will be like the master. So why do you pay attention to the speck in your brother’s eye while you have a log in your eye and are not conscious of it? How can you say to your neighbor: ‘Friend, let me take this speck out of your eye,’ when you can’t remove the log in your own? You hypocrite! First remove the log from your own eye and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your neighbor’s eye.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
The hypocrite Hides in others’ weaknesses, Yields to flattery, and Pretends. He is Opinionated, Criticizes others, Resents life and Invests on externals. He is a Tepid and Egoistic person. The foregoing description of a hypocrite is worded to form the acronym ‘hypocrite’ for better recall.
The hypocrite hides behind the insufficiencies of others. He rises to greatness by the destruction of others, not on his own merits. He yields to flattery because his self-image is dependent on what others say. Thus he lives in pretense. He appears strong though broken deep inside. Full of nothing but rotten bones, he radiates negative energies to his environment.
The hypocrite is opinionated. He dominates in the planning but disappears during execution because he is too selfish to give himself to concrete service. He is critical of others but never of himself. Recall that the antonym of hypocrisy is sincerity, which comes from the Latin ‘sine’ (without) and ‘cera’ (wax). The hypocrite is like a corpse waxed to appear good (Matt. 23:27). Each occasion to talk about others is a chance to spew rotten things abounding deep inside him. “From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34).
The hypocrite resents the realities of life and believes the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. To sanitize poor self-image, he invests on externals such as wealth, power and influence. He is tepid in spirituality. He is neither irreligious because he observes religious traditions, nor religious because his observance is for a show. This makes him the lukewarm Christian that Yahweh will vomit (Rev. 3:16). He is also egoistic. He is the typical person who jokes a lot but takes offense at the jokes of others.

This is not an exclusive list of who the hypocrites are so don’t rejoice that you don’t feel alluded to. In the eyes of God we may all be hypocrites, and that includes me. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.