Tuesday, August 27, 2013 21st Week in Ordinary Time St. Monica
1st Reading: 1 Thes 2:1-8 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)
I couldn’t forget a Cebuano priest’s lecture on hypocrisy. To refer to hypocrites, Cebuanos use the compound term “Tigpaka-Aron-Ingnon”. After the lecturer underlined the first letters of the words in “Tigpaka-Aron-Ingnon”, he said: “Whatever the resulting acronym means to you, its smell cannot be far from the odor of hypocrisy”.
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, nothing really worthwhile lies within him.
Hypocrites are like doughnuts aptly described as nothing surrounded by something. You hardly know who they are because they excel in the art of pretense. They can be the rumor mongers disguised as your hospitable host who “feast on you” after you have left. Their rumor mongering leaves a sour taste in your mouth that their hospitality cannot neutralize. They can even be the churchgoers piously taking communion by their tongue and using later the same tongue to malign others.
I like the way the priest played with the Cebuano word for hypocrisy. Just as the smelly word lies hidden in the acronym formed by the first letters of the words in “tigpaka-aron-ingnon”, so hypocrite people may succeed in hiding their true odor from us.
But they cannot hide from God. In the Book of Revelations we read: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ” (Rev. 3:15). As soon as God detects them, he vomits them, for while the hypocrite can swallow a camel (Mt. 23:24), God cannot swallow hypocrisy. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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