Jesus makes us merciful toward others. However, a person with a weak heart who is not anchored in Christ risks being strict in external discipline while remaining a hypocrite internally. In the Gospel of Matthew (21:23-27), the chief priests ask Jesus by what power he does his works. The question shows their “hypocritical heart”: they were not looking for the truth, only their own gain, and circumstances easily swayed them. They were all like wind direction indicators without principles. These individuals lacked a consistent heart. And so they bargained in everything like a marketer: they traded with inner freedom, with faith, with the homeland, with everything, except a favorable impression. For them, it was essential to get out of everything well. They were opportunists and profiteers: they used events to their advantage.
Some of you might say to me: ‘Father, these people kept the law: on the Sabbath they did not walk more than a hundred meters—or I do not know how much they were allowed to walk—they never went to the table without washing their hands and without performing purification rituals; they were cautious people, they felt very sure of their customs.’ Yes, that is true, but only externally. They were strong, but only externally. They were as if plastered. Their hearts were very weak; they did not know what they believed in. Their life was organized, but their heart was weak and moved from side to side, and their skin was thick and hard as plaster. Jesus, on the other hand, teaches us that a Christian must have a strong, firm heart, growing with support in the rock, which is Christ. He teaches us to be cautious: don’t trade with the heart or the rock. The rock is Christ; it is not traded!
This incident illustrates the hypocrisy of these individuals. Jesus never traded the heart of the Son of the Father, but he was very open to people, constantly looking for a way to help. They said, ‘This is not allowed to be done; our discipline, our doctrine, says that it is not allowed! Why do your disciples eat grain on the Sabbath while passing through the fields? That is not allowed!’ – They were very strict in their discipline: ‘No, discipline is inviolable; it is sacred.’ Let us recall the moment when Pope Pius XII lifted the too-strict Eucharistic fast.
Some of you may remember. You couldn’t even drink a glass of water. Not even that! And you were required to brush your teeth in a manner that prevented water from being ingested. As a boy, I went to confession because I had been to communion and because I was convinced that I had swallowed a little water. Is it true or not? It is true. However, when Pius XII changed the discipline, it was immediately said: ‘Heresy! No! He addressed the issue of church discipline, which offended many Pharisees. Many. Pius XII acted like Jesus by recognizing the needs of the people. ‘Poor people, in such heat!’ Pius XII, along with the priests, celebrated three masses, culminating in a fast at one in the afternoon. They took advantage of the Church’s discipline. These Pharisees were like that—’ our discipline’—with hardness in their skin, but as Jesus tells them, they were ‘rotten in heart,’ weak, weak to the point of rotting. Dark in heart.
This is the drama of these people. Jesus condemns hypocrisy and profiteering. Our lives can also become like that; indeed, our lives can mirror theirs as well. I will confess something to you. Sometimes, when I have seen such a Christian, or Christian woman, with a weak, unstable heart, which was not fixed on the rock—Jesus—and with great severity on the outside, I have said to the Lord: ‘Lord, throw him a banana peel so that he will slip nicely, so that he will feel ashamed for being a sinner and so that he will meet you, because you are the Savior.’ Many times sin will lead us to shame, and we will meet the Lord who forgives us, like these sick people in the Gospel who came to the Lord to be healed. But the simple people were not mistaken, despite the words of those teachers of the Law, because they understood; they had, in a sense, a keen intuition for faith.
I ask the Lord for the grace that our hearts may be simple, shining with the truth that he gives us, and that we may be kind, forgiving, and understanding towards others, that we may have a big heart for people, and that we may be merciful. May we never, truly never, judge others. If you want to judge, judge yourself; there will be some reason, right?” “Let us ask the Lord for the grace to provide us an interior light, to convince us that he alone is the rock and not the many matters that we ourselves make important; and may he himself show us the way, to accompany us on it, may he enlarge our hearts so that the problems of many people can enter them, and may he provide us the grace that these people did not have: the grace to feel like sinners.
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