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Commentary of the Gospell for the day, 26th of august of 2024
Let’s be honest: There are days when Jesus seems to be giving us a hard time. Today’s Gospel is one of them. Compared to the sweet image of Jesus in some pictures, surrounded by a glow and shooting rays of supposed love with a beatific expression, we can say today he’s shooting rays, but not of love, but of fire.
The scribes, experts in the law and its interpretation, and the Pharisees, that group within the Jewish world that tried to take faithfulness to the law to the extreme and comply with every last letter, are the target of Jesus’ rays. From the start, he throws an insult at them without hesitation, without subtlety, without beating around the bush. Jesus doesn’t give them a more or less kind hint. He directly accuses them of being «hypocrites.» According to the dictionary, that means being a «liar, phony, deceitful, false, impostor.» The fundamental accusation is that they neither enter nor let others enter. With their obsession to comply with the rule down to the last detail, they forget the meaning, the heart, of the rule. They even manipulate the rule so that, by fulfilling it, they don’t serve God but their own hidden interests (even to take money from widows…).
We must be careful that this doesn’t happen to us. First, because Jesus will call us hypocrites loud and clear. And second, because we stay outside, we miss the most important part of his message: it’s about loving, building family, caring for those most in need.
Today we celebrate Saint Teresa of Jesus Jornet and Ibars. She is the founder of the Little Sisters of the Abandoned Elderly. She was neither a scribe nor a Pharisee. She directly got down to work. She understood the most important part of the Gospel, which is not about counting the candles that should be on the altar for the celebration of Mass – something very, very secondary – but about opening our hands and hearts to the needs of our brothers and sisters.