Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s readings offer us two ways to “learn God”.
The first way is by contemplating God’s works. We learn that God is creator. It’s a beautiful way to come to know God. It’s a way children are taught to know God. Think, for example, of the catechism question and answer, “Why did God make you? God made me to know him, to love him and to serve him in this life so that I can live with him forever.”
This way of knowing God always remains valuable for our lives as we grow in accepting ourselves more and more as sons and daughters of God, made in his image. Our first reading today is about God the creator.
The second way of “learning God” is facing our sins. We learn that God is redeemer. It’s the way we are led as we become aware that all is not right and we are to learn that we are capable of doing bad things or of not doing the good we are led to do.
The Apostles Creed, with which we begin each rosary and which the Church prays at Sunday Eucharist in the Easter Season reminds us this: “I believe …in the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus comes to forgive our sins.
Our Gospel today is about a specific sin that needs forgiveness – the sin of hypocrisy.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to this sin in treating the Eighth Commandment,
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
“Truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and guarding against duplicity, dissimulation, and hypocrisy.” CCC #2505)
In today’s Gospel Jesus called the Pharisees and scribes hypocrites, quoting Isaiah: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
Let us “learn God” – who created and redeemed us – by keeping ourselves open to all truth. This requires patience with ourselves as we learn that we are not always as truthful, as we suppose. But the God who made us knows us well and calls us to trust that his redeeming love is drawing us back to himself!
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections