Reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus said, woe to you scribes and pharisees, you frauds. You shut the doors of the kingdom of god in men's faces, neither entering yourselves nor permitting those who are trying to enter to get in. Woe to you scribes and pharisees, you frauds. You travel over sea and land to make a single convert.
But once he is converted, you make a devil of him, twice as wicked as yourselves. That's pretty strong language, isn't it? It is an evil day for you, blind guides. Remember, these were the leaders of the people. These were the social elect.
These were the educated, the cultured, the people of power. And our lord says, it is an evil day for you, blind guides. You declare, if a man swears by the temple, it means nothing. But if he swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated. Blind fools, which is more important, the gold or the temple which makes the gold sacred?
Again you declare, if a man swears by the altar, it means nothing. But if he swears by the gift on the altar, he is obligated. How blind you are. Which is more important, the offering or the altar, which makes the offering sacred? The man who swears by the altar is swearing by it and by everything on it.
The man who swears by the temple is swearing by it and by him who dwells there. The man who swears by heaven is swearing by god's throne and by him who is seated on that throne. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
Our lord's strictures on the scribes and the pharisees is extremely significant. It creates a danger, a danger that is almost inescapable, that we identify all the scribes, all the pharisees, all the lawyers with these gentlemen that our blessed lord condemns. Notice he condemns them. He calls them frauds, hypocrites, and that's a form of intentional lying. Because we know from the from the New Testament itself, from the that there were some of the pharisees and some of the scribes who were not at all the blind leading the blind.
But by and large, see, these these leaders of the people, these scribes, pharisees, sadducees, remember, these were the men who knew the law. These were the men who were trying to observe it meticulously. These were the leaders of the people. These were the men of position, of birth, of culture, of education. These were the people the the men, the leaders that the people looked up to to give them leadership.
They were taken take they were taken very seriously, and our blessed lord publicly calls them frauds. No wonder they they did not have the highest kind of love for Jesus Christ. It's a pity that we have to face up to some realities of life. One of those realities, among many others, is that something begins in a very good way. Something is legislated, using that word very broad broadly.
And it's it's a good thing for the time. But what happens is that the purpose it was aimed to satisfy disappears. But the but the what was done in virtue of a special situation continues on after the situation is gone. You've heard about what is called sunset laws. See, this is a this is I say it's inescapable.
And in many instances, the only way we resolve is having a first class revolution, then we start all over again, start making all new laws. But when it comes to religion, this is extremely significant. Extremely significant. You know, there is nothing that has played so much havoc with men and women's lives as religion, sex, and money. Religion, sex, and money.
This is a fact. I've just been reading stories, short stories by Sheber, and this is brought out most clearly. Of course, you don't have to read short stories. All you have to do is to have some acquaintance with life to know this is true. See, anybody who can call religion a narcotic or an anesthesia of the people, it's ridiculous.
That's like calling sex a narcotic. Can be, I guess. It's like calling money a narcotic. And yet there have been very few wars fought that that war didn't have something to do with all three of those things, most of the time. The trouble with religion is religion, and the trouble with us is we're human.
So the best thing we can do is to start by admitting those two things. We're not angels. It was Descartes who tried to make us into an angel, or Plato. We are human beings. We are we are linked to this earth.
And to behave as if we were disembodied spirits is absurd because we're nothing of the sort. As I've said many times, I have much more regard for a good honest to God materialist than I have for an idealist any day of the week. And yet, you see, and yet, down the ages, it's been the platonic idea of the human being which has dominated our psychology, even to this day. Even to this day. Right to the Monday morning, 08/23/1982, USA Garrett Park.
Some of the some of the prayers that I will say at this mass are inspired by neo platonism. Now, we're human beings. We go to God as human beings. We don't go to him as pure angels or disembodied spirits and souls. We are not souls.
We're human beings. And therefore, we use all the means that we have at our disposal to worship God. Now the problem is that sometimes we forget God and make the means ends in themselves. We have a beautiful gift to offer God, so we want to put it in a nice beautiful wrapping. There's nothing wrong with that.
There's nothing wrong in giving a beautiful gift and making it a beautiful package. But you see, it's turning things all upside down when we forget the gift and emphasize the packaging. But you see, we can't divorce these two things. They're both important. They're both important.
But the difficulty is keeping first things first. And the first thing about religion is God, not me. It's God. The first thing about religion is going to God as a human being. And in trying to do this well, in trying to surround ourselves with all the helps which will make our going to God easier.
In many instances, God gets left out of the thing, and we concentrate on the means that were supposed to help us to God and now which obstruct it. I've just been re finished reading a whole volume of stories by Singer, Isaac Singer, you know, the the the Yiddish author who was got the Nobel Prize for his short story. This is brought out clearly. For example, on the Sabbath day, it was questioned whether a Jew should use a cane. Why?
Because it said you shall not work on the Sabbath day. Therefore, you shouldn't use machinery and tools. Therefore, you must not even touch a shovel or a hole or a scythe, because if you touch it, you might be led to using it. And obviously, a cane is a tool or an instrument. So therefore, one of the questions was, can we use a cane?
It was decided, well, yes, a cane may be used. But I'm pointing out how we can get lost in these details. They're not sordid. These are important things. But the but they lose their importance when they lose their value, and they lose their value when they are separated for honest to God religion.
We may talk all we want about the sixteenth century and the reformers. Remember, a lot of the things they they were protesting against were valid protestations, but they didn't discover them. Please remember that. Most of the valid objections that came out of Lutheran, Calvin, and Zwinglian, and all the rest of them, Buber, Mellonthorn, these had been known literally at least a century before. There were plenty of reformers around.
They weren't the first ones. But the thing is it's that it's it's difficult to keep our religion pure. Well, what do you mean now by keeping our religion pure? You mean unadulterated with anthropomorphism? How can it be unadulterated when we are human beings?
Remember, anthropomorphism means anthropos, and anthropos means man, also women. So let's be honest, as I say, let's begin with this fact that we're human beings. And that generates a danger. Here's another example where we can where the where we it's possible that the best can be the enemy of the good, as Voltaire said. We have to realize who we are.
We have to realize who God is, and that our first obligation is to God almighty to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world in order to be happy with him forever in the next. But we have to do this as human beings, which is a dangerous thing to be, but that's what we are. In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit. Amen.