A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus said, woe to you scribes and pharisees, you frauds. Notice his facing them. You shut the doors of the kingdom of god in men's faces, neither entering yourselves nor admitting those who are trying to get in. Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, you frauds.
You travel overseas and you travel over land to make a single convert. But once he is converted, you make a devil of him twice as wicked as yourselves. Can you imagine why the Pharisees and scribes hated Christ? And then our lord continues. 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 you give 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. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. I don't know what you make of this particular reading. The first thing that comes through without any doubt, clear as a bell of the finest timber. And it was translucently clear for his hearers, the scribes, and the pharisees because he's addressing them.
He's telling them this face to face. And I ask you to remember, these were the leaders of the people. These were the educated men. These were the good people. These were the defenders of the people.
These were the men entrusted to give the word of god to the people for their salvation. That's described in the pharisees. And our blessed lord calls them a bunch of frauds and hypocrites. Just recall the incident where that pharisee came into the temple, not with the temple or the synagogue. And he comes straight up to where you had a sort of tabernacle which sheltered, the old what we call the Old Testament, the Torah.
And there he tells god how good he is. Have you ever noticed how good a man he was? When I read that from time to time, I say, I wish I were as good as that. And then our lord this was a parable of our lord. Then he talks about the sinner who comes in the back of the church, the back of the synagogue, the back of the temple.
I wouldn't dare come up front and tell god how good he is. No. He's too busy telling god how bad he is in god's sight. And our lord said, the sinner is justified rather than the pharisee. Now these this is what our lord said.
Now this should be our consolation. This is the message today. Don't try to play games with god almighty. You can't get away with it. How often, from this very pulpit, I have stressed this fact, that by being human we are in this world.
We were born into this world. God wants us here. And yet there is so much in this world which is God's creation, which demands our attention. Notice I say demand. You can't escape it.
By fulfilling your duty, by fulfilling your vocation in this life, by living up to your responsibilities, you have to immerse yourself in the things of this life. You have to do a lot of things. And when you're doing this, it's very easy to be lost in what you have to do. It's so easy. It is so terribly easy.
We can lose sight of what it's all about because we're so busy with the immediate job. This particular task, this particular problem which we have to resolve, that we forget what it's all about. We forget god. And at and and at the at the same time, we can be going through all the motions. You can have a religious I use this because it's the simplest example.
You can have a a contemplative religious who is absolutely faith to the minutiae of his or her monastic convent life. Every detail perfectly kept. And they can be pagans. They can be. Or they can much more so, they can be just plain atheists.
You all remember that famous TV show. I guess you do. Where at the end, the abbot turns out to be a man who's lost his faith in god, and yet he was the abbot of the monastery for years. I think it was called the Catholics, wasn't it? This can happen in our notice, we aren't talking about our neighbor.
I'm talking about myself. By the very fact that I am what I am and I'm obliged to do certain things which I'm have a responsibility of doing, by that very fact, the world is pulling me to itself. And against that pull, you have the pull of god. You say, I'm committed to god's work. Yes.
And it's so easy to forget god and lose yourself in the work. It's so easy. You don't have to make an effort to succeed famously in this way of life. It'll take care of itself. And so to be a Christian, to follow Jesus Christ, is to take our lord seriously here Because this theme that is brought out in this account and this is not a parable we're talking about.
This is supposed to be an incident in our Lord's life. And remember, if you take up and go back and read it, this particular passage in your New Testament, you will see this goes on for over a page. Woe to you scribes, pharisees, hypocrites. It goes on for over a page. Now I'm not going to go into all the ins and outs of how it how we're supposed to accept this.
But as I say, there is no question about the main thrust of this. Our blessed lord is warning us, me, that I have to beware of externals. I have to beware of religion. I have to be beware of worship. I can lose myself in all of these things and forget god.
Of course, I can do it without any trouble. And if our lord is telling us that the altar is far more important than the gift, The house of god is the house of god, not because it's a house, but because of god. But, again, it's so easy to see the house and forget god. So easy. It's almost inevitable, and I'm I'm here.
I'm close to co quoting Cardinal Newman because that that's an astonishing phrase, you know. But it's true because everything in this world is attracting me, pulling me, and it's visible, it's concrete, it's tangible. I can see and touch and feel, and I can do none of that with god almighty. None of it. God is invisible.
He is I can't touch him. I can't feel him. I can't but I can, Jesus Christ. That is something else. He is one of us.
And today, as we celebrate the queenship of Mary, let us think that never do we celebrate a feast of Mary without Mary pointing to her son, Jesus Christ. Mary never points to herself. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.