Yesterday in our Gospel message, we heard Jesus give a harsh warning to the scribes and Pharisees, about how they continue to ignore God’s message that Jesus is trying to bring, just as their ancestors ignored the message of the prophets. Today, Jesus continues to warn the crowds about the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees as he tells his disciples that they should not be led astray by their hypocrisy, since they live by double standards. The Pharisees are concerned with the outward appearance of being holy, but they neglect their inner spiritual lives and they judge others harshly by these same outward standards. The Pharisees may look holy through their outward practices and their elegant robes, but the appearance of things can be deceiving according to Jesus. The disciples may have been confused by these comments; they had not seen the Pharisees for who they really were.
In the way they approached life, I don’t think the scribes and Pharisees understood Jesus’ message about carrying our crosses. In the midst of our own struggles and challenges, we are called to carry our crosses and to unite those crosses with the cross of Christ. Paul of the Cross is a saint whose feast day we celebrate today. After serving a solider in Italy in the early 18th century, Paul turned to a life of prayer and developed a devotion to Christ’s passion. Paul of the Cross saw the love and mercy Christ has for us rooted in the passion. The preaching of Paul of the Cross on Christ’s passion touched the hearts of many. Paul founded the Congregation of the Passion in 1720, known popularly as the Passionists. The Passionists added the vow of spreading the memory of Christ’s passion to the people to the traditional vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity. May we find comfort, love, and mercy in Christ’s passion and cross just like St Paul of the Cross.
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