The scribes and Pharisees were renowned for their zeal, concern for purity, and their conformity to the law of Moses. The very word Pharisee comes from the word meaning “to separate”. The Pharisees sought to separate themselves from everything that was sinful. They would even avoid eating with sinners, hence, their consternation when Jesus would dine with tax collectors and prostitutes. They were meticulous in distancing themselves from sin.
However, the Lord often criticizes the Pharisees for neglecting the deeper, internal aspects of righteousness, such as humility, mercy, and genuine love for God and others.
Christians must do both. We must be meticulous in rooting out sin, while at the same time pursuing that internal transformation, that God wants for us.
Christians are called to a righteousness that goes beyond external religious rituals and legalistic observance. That doesn’t mean that we prohibit religious rituals or legal observance. Like, well, I’m humble so I don’t need to follow the law. No. We need both.
We follow legitimate authority, we follow liturgical law, we separate ourselves from sinful behavior, and root out our attachments to sin, but we also are to cultivate gentleness, patience, generosity, genuine care for people, and a burning love for God.
This teaching of Jesus is important for us to keep in mind as we engage in our Lenten observances. Our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are not mindless rituals. Fasting isn’t magic. Fasting alone is not enough to win entrance into heaven. Nor is the quantity of one’s fasting a measure of one’s righteousness. Rather, fasting is to be done a sign of sincere repentance and penance for sin which offends God and has damage our souls. Lenten fasting and detachment from worldly entertainments is to deepen our hunger, nor just for food, but for God.
We fast and pray and give because Christ fast and prayed and gave, but also to become like him in ALL things. That our minds and hearts may become like His.
Today on the liturgical calendar is one of the beloved saints and martyrs of the early church, St. Polycarp. The top middle stained glass window in the eastern narthex here depicts St. Polycarp being ordained a bishop of St. John the Apostle along with our parish patron St. Ignatius of Antioch. Like Ignatius, Polycarp also wrote letters, but we have only one surviving letter: St. Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians.
In it, St. Polycarp takes up this idea of righteousness as following the example of Christ. Polycarp writes: “Let us then continually persevere in our hope and the security of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ who bore our sins in his own body on the tree. He who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth), but who endured all things for us so that we might live in Him. Let us then be imitators of his patience. If we suffer for his name's sake, let us glorify him. For he has set us this example in himself, and we have believed that.”
Let us take up this great saint’s advice this Lent, in striving for true righteousness, which is Jesus Christ himself for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
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That the season of Lent may bring the most hardened hearts to repentance and bring to all people purification of sin and selfishness.
For those preparing for baptism and the Easter sacraments, that they may continue to conform themselves to Christ through fervent prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
For all who are oppressed by any kind of need, that the Lord may graciously grant them relief.
For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.
Grant, we pray, O Lord, that your people may turn to you with all their heart, so that whatever they dare to ask in fitting prayer they may receive by your mercy. Through Christ our Lord.
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