HYPOCRISY AND GRACE
SAINT IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH, BISHOP, MARTYR
Rom 4:1-8; Ps 32:1-2,5,11;
Lk 12:1-7
Avoiding the Yeast of
Pharisees
The root of hypocrisy is
the desire to present to others qualities that are not genuinely ours. It is
the desire to appear better than we really are to others. Hence, there is a
saying that hypocrisy is a tribute vice pays to virtue. It arises from the desire
of vice to dress itself in the borrowed garb of virtue. A hypocrite desires to
deceive, which makes it evil and of the evil one. We are not truly converted
when this yeast is present in us, for conversion is a sincere acknowledgement
of our sinfulness before God and man. Hypocrisy is born from a desire to evade
the grace of conversion, which we have called a prevenient grace. If we evade
the prevenient grace, we equally evade the actual grace which follows it and
occasions our encounter with Jesus Christ and declaration of faith in him. The
implication of evading the prevenient and actual graces is our inability to see
or return to God in thanksgiving and self-sacrifice. Because hypocrisy is born
of a desire to avoid the light, it harbours the evil one. A life of hypocrisy
is a life built on lies; thus, it is a life built on quicksand that will come
crashing down at the first sign of life’s tempest. We are prone to the sin of
hypocrisy because of our spiritual and bodily composition, since our hearts and
intentions are hidden from the public.
Faith brings us to
understand that God sees our inmost parts and judges us accordingly. Therefore,
we must be open to prevenient grace, which strengthens our faith in God and
helps us to avoid the yeast of the Pharisees. One who believes in Jesus Christ and
walks with him will not be contaminated with the yeast of Pharisees, unless we
lose our focus on him. Hence, our Lord instructs his followers to be vigilant
against hypocrisy. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees—that
is, their hypocrisy. Everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and
everything now hidden will be made clear. For this reason, whatever you have
said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in
hidden places will be proclaimed on the housetop.” In other words, to come to
God is to live in the light, because it is to pass our days in the full view of
the One who sees all things. To turn to God in Jesus Christ is to be open to
the prevenient grace He sends to us daily, by which we know His holy will for
us and do it through the actual grace we amply receive in Jesus Christ. It is
on this conviction that God knows us and watches over our lives that the Lord
admonishes us to live without fear. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the
body and after that can do no more. I will tell you whom to fear: fear him who,
after he has killed, has the power to cast into hell.” The life of a Christian
is an open book and a sacrifice to God. Though it is sealed because it is
patterned on the will of God, a mystery to the faithless.
Saint Paul presents this
openness to God in faith as what sanctified the ancestors. Abraham is
considered upright because he walked in faith before God. “What shall we say
about Abraham, the ancestor from whom we are all descended? If Abraham was
justified as a reward for doing something, he would really have had something
to boast about, though not in God’s sight, because scripture says: “Abraham put
his faith in God, and this faith was considered as justifying him.” Our
openness to God’s graces helps us to know ourselves better in Christ and submit
ourselves to God through him. The sincere humility which the grace of true
conversion gives us pleases God, who sends the Spirit of His Son into us to
redeem and adopt us. Saint Ignatius of Antioch was so conscious of his
nothingness and indebtedness to God that he counted it a big honour to be
thrown to the wild beast for the love of Jesus Christ. He was the second bishop
of Antioch after St. Peter the Apostle. He was denounced, arrested, and
condemned to death. He was transported to Rome to be thrown to the wild beast
in the Arena. He wrote seven letters to various churches during his journey to
Rome. In these letters, he dealt wisely and deeply with Christ, the
Organisation of the Church, and the Christian life. They reveal his
spirituality and facts about the history of the Church. He was martyred in 107
and celebrated on the 17th of October since the fourth century.
Let us pray: Almighty
ever-living God, who adorn the sacred body of your Church with the confessions
of holy Martyrs, grant, we pray, that, just as the glorious passion of Saint
Ignatius of Antioch, which we celebrate today, brought him eternal splendour,
so it may be for us unending protection. 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.
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