“Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing...” (Matthew 23:28.)
Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:
“As the scribes and Pharisees were previously called “full of robbery and intemperance,” likewise here they are said to be “full of hypocrisy and iniquity” and are compared with “the bones of the dead and all uncleanness.” Hypocrisy, because it is a counterfeit of the good, possesses nothing vital of the good it simulates, but is only its dead bones, so to speak. If we listen with wisdom to what the present passage wants to tell us, we will understand that every simulated righteousness is a dead righteousness, hence no righteousness at all. Just as a dead man can still have the appearance of a man, even though he is in fact no longer a man, so also a dead chastity is no chastity. For any virtue is dead when it is not practiced for God but feigned on account of men. He who feigns righteousness can give the appearance of being righteous even though what he has is not righteousness at all but only a figment of righteousness, much like impersonators who can take on the appearance of another individual without thereby actually becoming the other person. The same is true concerning chastity. Because of this, men who do such things are appropriately compared with “whitewashed tombs which look beautiful from the outside,” for they give every external appearance of righteousness, even though they are full of “the bones of the dead” within.” (Commentary on Matthew, 24.)
Collect
Renew in Your Church, we pray, O Lord,
the spirit with which You endowed
Your Bishop Saint Augustine
that, filled with the same spirit,
we may thirst for You,
the sole fount of true wisdom,
and seek You, the author of heavenly love.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
the spirit with which You endowed
Your Bishop Saint Augustine
that, filled with the same spirit,
we may thirst for You,
the sole fount of true wisdom,
and seek You, the author of heavenly love.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
