MESSAGE FROM THE
ARCHBISHOP-PRIMATE
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"Amen I tell you unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew v:20 Once more our Saviour scores the externalism of the scribes and Pharisees, and states very plainly that such superficial service does not justify a man in the sight of God or merit for him the kingdom of heaven. Before this our Lord had publicly rebuked their religious pride, their merely external piety, their unblushing egotism; had reprimanded their censoriousness and lack of charity. Now He gives them another straightforward lecture on their distorted attitude, and in effect tells them that there is a tribunal, which is above the judgment of men. The tribunal of God, Who searches the heart, is above their high court of seventy-one, which sat at Jerusalem to try difficult cases and to pronounce severe sentences. A reverent paraphrase of our blessed Lord’s words might read: "You have heard from your doctors of the law that one who kills is in danger of the judgment of men, but I say to you to be angry with one’s brother without cause is a sin before the tribunal of God. You have also heard that if anyone calls his brother ‘Raca’ (that is, fool, despicable, worthless), he shall be punished before his council, but I say that all bitterness and hatred is punishable with hell-fire." This does not mean that every outburst of anger is a mortal sin or that calling another a fool is necessarily a mortal sin. There is such a thing as just anger; our Lord Himself called His disciples "foolish", Saint Paul called the Galatians "senseless". Without endorsing the flippant application of the epithet which is forever on the tongues of many, it may be pointed out that it is bitterness and uncharitableness of heart that our Lord condemns as being always an offense in the sight of God. And God refuses the gifts and prayers of those who bear hatred. God repudiates the offering of a bitter, revengeful heart, and until that devastating bitterness is removed He finds no pleasure in the service of such a heart, however correct it may be as to externals. The justice of the scribes and Pharisees was not sincere. They preached and professed but did not practice genuinely. They made their religion a stepping stone to popularity or gain. With them it was a veneer of manners, a fashion. They distorted the law of God for their traditions, and even in those points in which they slavishly adhered to the law, there was no account taken of the law of the spirit. Their standards were human standards. There is not so much of this flagrant Pharisaism among us, but there is plenty of a more subtle kind. And notwithstanding the fact that Christianity is so much higher than Judaism, and that our spiritual privileges are so much greater than those of the Jewish people, there are a great many of us who are not adequately practicing Catholics. There are indeed Catholics and Catholics: there are open and consistent Catholics, and there are merely nominal Catholics. These latter may make exactly the same profession as practicing Catholics; and that is hypocrisy - hidden beneath the cloak of the holiest institution in the world, but not with one honest, unaffected desire of doing what she expects of her children. This type of Catholic may tell you that he wishes that he might be better, that the flesh is weak, that God alone can overcome it, and he hopes that God will overcome it for him, whereas, though the practicing Catholic may have the same confession to make, it is with this difference: though he realizes that he does not measure up to the standards of the Church, he does really have a willing heart. He does want Christ and not self in the shrine of his heart. The merely nominal Catholic has no other judge and king in his heart than self, and he is always defending his conduct to himself and arguing, as it were, with conscience to justify his weakness. It is a kind of spiritual double-mindedness. He makes out some kind of case for himself as if God were his peer, he defends himself so skillfully that he seems almost like a good man. And his excuses may be plausible, but his motives are bad. He has not the love of God in his heart; there is no truth, no sincerity in him. A summing up of the case would read something like this: We are not talking about brazen sinners who have divorced themselves from religion long ago. We are discussing the merely professing and the sincerely practicing Catholic. Perhaps both of them commit sin and perhaps both are sorry. They may resemble each other. But Christ is all in all to the practicing Catholic. He is just an accident to the merely professing Catholic. God is an everlasting presence to one. He wants to live by Him, he has given himself to God as His servant - sometimes a delinquent servant, but His servant at heart forever. To the other, God is just a passing acquaintance. He may give Him external worship but he does not open his heart to Him and enthrone Him there and seek to love Him. He is a hypocrite, for the spirit of love and the spirit of piety are lacking in his life, and his religion is only a veneer of manners. The service that the Saviour insisted on was first of all internal homage, without which all external observance avails nothing for salvation. To assist at Mass, to be active in every kind of church work, to go trough every external motion of Catholic life, without making an effort to reform the heart and the conscience is to have the justice that does. Not abound one whit more than that of the scribes and Pharisees. And according to the verdict of our Lord Jesus Christ, such justice does not merit the kingdom of heaven.
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