Commitment to the Mission

Mt 23:13-22

Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men.
You do not enter yourselves,
nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You traverse sea and land to make one convert,
and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna
twice as much as yourselves.

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say,
‘If one swears by the temple, it means nothing,
but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.’
Blind fools, which is greater, the gold,
or the temple that made the gold sacred?

And you say, ‘If one swears by the altar, it means nothing,
but if one swears by the gift on the altar, one is obligated.’
You blind ones, which is greater, the gift,
or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

One who swears by the altar swears by it and all that is upon it;
one who swears by the temple swears by it
and by him who dwells in it;

one who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God
and by him who is seated on it.”

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You may have heard about how fundamentalists have attacked the Church using the passages of today's Gospel.

In my country, fundamentalist numbers have grown through the years. I once remember crossing myself in one literary contest I joined, and one co-participant was shocked. He acted as though I had some contagious disease. "You're Catholic? Oh no."

The talk about Pharisees and other people of high rank within the Catholic Church can really fire up our brother and sister fundamentalists and bring on their attacks on the Catholic Church, making such claims like "the Pope is the antichrist," and, "you must be Born-Again."

I in fact have just read some comics from this illustrator who seems to specialize in writing against the Catholic Church. I quite remember reading one of their comics about "why is Mary crying," and I just read about how disparagingly their comics depict the Society of Jesus. I have yet to discover the Society from the inside (after all I am not one of them yet, and I am not sure if God will grant me the chance), but I have this to say about the things I read: I found them too preposterous to believe in. These writings can only come from a misunderstanding of what the Church and the Society of Jesus does and is missioned to do.

I personally believe that the way we look at other people can only be influenced by what we have experienced from them. If they are this hateful of our Church, I cannot but conclude that somehow they may have been at the receiving end of mistakes that some members of our Church have committed through the years.

Let us pray for the Spirit of Unity and Faith, that we may all be one, and that we may work to unite ourselves in Christ instead of working towards division and dissension.

The second part of the Gospel tells us about Pharisees crossing land and sea to make converts. We have no authority to judge people as whether they are like Pharisees or not, but this somehow must be clear to us: as we live our lives as Christians, do others see the Faith in us? Or do we further corrupt the world around us? My country was evangelized because of missionaries, as a result my nation is one of the two Christian nations in Asia (the other is East Timor). Not all missionaries are perfect, and history can only shudder at how some of them have done great disservice to the Church and to its newly-evangelized.

If we are sent to a mission, are we doing the right thing? Are we really committed?

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Saint Ignatius of Loyola, grant that we may always stand for the Truth and for what God wants us to do for His greater glory. Amen.

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photo credits: http://www.lwbc.co.uk/Marks%20Gospel/pharisees.JPG, http://www.sundayschoolcourses.com/inq/friars.jpg