Monday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

Monday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

Mt 23:13-22

Have you ever thought of being a Pharisee? To be honest, I’ve sometimes felt like a Pharisee, especially during times when I’ve felt like I wasn’t practicing what I preached.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus criticized the Pharisees and scribes for being “hypocrites.”

But what is really a “hypocrite?

I know it sounds like a negative term, but let us learn what Jesus said.

The term “hypocrite” is a Greek word meaning stage actors—people who wear masks and play roles.

In Jewish writings, this term had a negative connotation, implying deceit and pretense.

In the English dictionary, hypocrites are those who wear a false face, pretending to have qualities or virtues they don’t truly have.

Jesus criticized the Pharisees and scribes for their inconsistency between their outward actions and their inward motivations. He rebuked them for wearing false faces, focusing on outward appearances to seem holy and righteous while having bad intentions in their hearts. In other words, their outward actions and inward motivations did not match. Top of FormBottom of Form

Today’s reading encourages us to reflect on the consistency of our outward actions and our inner motivations. Our outward actions must be motivated by genuine intentions to be truly good and moral. According to Church teaching, every moral act consists of three elements: the objective act (what we do), the subjective intention (why we do it), and the circumstances (where, when, how, with whom, and the consequences). If any of these elements is flawed, the act becomes immoral. For instance, if I do charitable work merely to gain praise, the act is not truly moral.

Jesus calls us to align our actions with the true intentions of our hearts, which are the source of blessings and good actions. When our hearts are filled with love, our actions will naturally reflect that love. As Jesus said, “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of the store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”

As we approach the Eucharist, let us be nourished by God’s words and Eucharist, and let us ask God to fill our hearts with his love and grace so that our outward actions and inward motivations can become a unified expression of God’s goodness and love.

I have a question for us to reflect on today:

Are our actions consistent with our inner intentions?

May God bless us all.