Hi! Since I receive these emails once everyday, I thought I should share these with you! So I'll be blogging them up as regularly as I can!

God Bless!
William


Good News Reflection
Wednesday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time
Aug. 30, 2006
Removing the masks of hypocrisy
[en Español: http://gnm.org/ReflexionesDiarias]

Today's Saint: Fiacre
http://wordbytes.org/saints/DailyPrayers/Fiacre.htm

Today's Readings:
2 Thes 3:6-10, 16-18
Ps 128:1-2, 4-5
Matt 23:27-32
http://www.usccb.org/nab/083006.shtml

Reflection:
In today's Gospel reading, Jesus defines hypocrisy as being a "whitewashed tomb" -- looking holy and clean in outward appearance but deadly and dirty on the inside. This is the danger of being religiously legalistic, as Jesus addressed in the previous verses.

We all fall into hypocrisy from time to time. For example, when an act of kindness has a legalistic motive (i.e., doing it out of duty rather than out of compassion), our goodness is only skin-deep, not heart-deep.

When someone says to us, "I don't like the way you treated me when ---", we put on the mask of listening, but our hidden faces contort with rapid-fire thoughts of self-defensiveness, because we're more concerned about ourselves than about the other person's pain.

We wear the mask of hypocrisy because it helps us feel protected and safe. In reality, it's deadly to our interactions with others; it interferes with life-giving love. Only when we're vulnerable can we give genuine caring and open ourselves to receive goodness from others. This is true even when we're right and the other person is wrong and even when a kindness is inconvenient. Of course we'll sometimes get hurt, but Jesus is always with us, kissing our wounds and leading us to people who DO treat us lovingly.

Hypocrisy slowly kills our true, God-given identity. If we wear this mask for a long time, we lose awareness of who we really are and what our value truly is. Those who encounter us do not see the person that God created us to be. Thus, the Pharisees became "full of filth and dead men's bones." How dirty and dead are you inside? Answer this by asking: To what extent am I neglecting to serve others because I'm serving myself?

In today's first reading, St. Paul differentiates between those who wander from God's ways and those who follow the tradition passed down from the Apostles. As Paul describes it, that tradition is one of loving service: no disorderliness, no impositions upon others, and working hard in the service of God's kingdom. Paul and his team of traveling evangelists cared so much about the people they shepherded that they served them even in toil and drudgery, night and day.

Why does Paul tell us to avoid socializing with those who stray from the path of Christ and the Apostles? Hypocrisy is highly contagious! As the responsorial Psalm reminds us, we are happiest when we walk in God's ways, because our hard work of loving and caring about others produces the fruit of being loved and cared for. Hypocrisy interferes with this. O God, help us to dare to be truly who you created us to be -- imitators of Christ your Son; amen!