Daily Retreat 08/28/06
2006 Aug 28 Mon: Augustine, bp, dr M
2 Thes 1: 1-5. 11-12/ Ps 95(96): 1-2a. 2b-3. 4-5/ Mt 23: 13-22
From today’s readings: “We always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His calling and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose and every effort of faith.... Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.... Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!”
Woes
When Jesus expounded the series of woes to the scribes and Pharisees, He was not pronouncing a curse on them, but rather, describing their already tragic, pathetic state for “missing the boat” in the essentials of religious observance.
While it’s almost hard to believe that the scribes and Pharisees were so misled that they really needed the simple, straightforward explanations and clarifications offered by Jesus, most, if not all of us, are blind to our own instances of hypocrisy, for which we too stand in need of illumination from Christ.
For ultimately, that’s what makes up our own worst woes - not the curses heaped on by others, but the pathetic self-imposed blindness of ignoring the Lord and thinking we’ve got it all figured out on our own!
2 Thes 1: 1-5. 11-12/ Ps 95(96): 1-2a. 2b-3. 4-5/ Mt 23: 13-22
From today’s readings: “We always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His calling and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose and every effort of faith.... Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.... Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!”
Woes
When Jesus expounded the series of woes to the scribes and Pharisees, He was not pronouncing a curse on them, but rather, describing their already tragic, pathetic state for “missing the boat” in the essentials of religious observance.
While it’s almost hard to believe that the scribes and Pharisees were so misled that they really needed the simple, straightforward explanations and clarifications offered by Jesus, most, if not all of us, are blind to our own instances of hypocrisy, for which we too stand in need of illumination from Christ.
For ultimately, that’s what makes up our own worst woes - not the curses heaped on by others, but the pathetic self-imposed blindness of ignoring the Lord and thinking we’ve got it all figured out on our own!
posted by FrPitstick | 8/26/2006
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