ARE WE, TOO, HYPOCRITES?

When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem
gathered around Jesus . . , they questioned him and He responded,
“Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me.
You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”  Mark 7:6-8

In a 2019 morning Mass homily, Pope Francis says that hypocrisy “is appearing one way but being something else” or hiding what one really thinks. He asks us to be honest with ourselves, admitting that we, too, are guilty of the sin of hypocrisy which is one of the tools the devil uses to lure us away from God. In her October 15, 2019 report on Pope Francis’ homily, Catholic News Service reporter Carol Glatz writes:

“’Hypocrisy’, the pope said, ‘always, sooner or later, kills’ and the only ‘medicine’ to cure hypocritical behavior is to tell the truth before God and take responsibility for oneself.

“We have to learn to accuse ourselves, ‘I did this, I think this way, badly. I am envious. I want to destroy that one,’ he said. People need to reflect on ‘what is inside of us’ to see the sin, hypocrisy and ‘the wickedness that is in our heart’ and ‘to say it before God’ with humility.”

SIN AND SALVATION

Bishop Robert Barron says that hypocrisy, like all “sin is not a weakness that we can overcome but a condition from which we have to be saved.”  What do you think he means by this? What might be the difference between a “weakness” and a “condition”?

WEAKNESS OR CONDITION

I think that perhaps for Bishop Barron “weakness” means something that is a natural ability that is in need of strengthening.  An athlete who hasn’t played the sport during the off season and now has to work on getting his body and psyche back into shape so that he can play well is trying to remove weakness. Another example:  a person who broke a leg, had it in a cast for a long while and afterwards has to learn to walk.

Hypocrisy and sin are not like that becasue they are not natural to us but the result of our bad choices. They are “conditions” in which a person finds herself when she has allowed something that doesn’t belong “in” her to enter into her (sin) and then tries to hide it (hypocrisy).  Examples: a child or teen who, contrary to the parents’ rules, smokes, consumes drugs or alcohol, engages in sexual activities; an adult who leads a double life, more specific examples:  a Bernie Madoff, an adulterer, a thief.

I see a difference between the functional weakness of the broken leg and the condition’s altered state of a person leading a double life.¹  With the internal weakness, the inborn material (muscle, nerves, psyche, etc.) need reconditioning and the person himself has to be the one who decides to do the reconditioning.

With the hypocrisy and sin, that which was introduced into me, the deceitfulness, the misfunctioning of the mind and the will, have caused havoc within and that havoc extends to tainting our relationships with everyone who depends on me to be the person they think I am. The sinner/hypocrite is aware of the deceit and is ashamed of it and the good person, turned sinner/hypocrite, is being destroyed by the deceit and his awareness of it.

A FEW GOOD DEEDS ARE NOT ENOUGH TO FIX THIS

Does doing a few good deeds help the situation? No. It may make the sinner/hypocrite feel better about himself. But, for the observers of these good deeds, what they see is a false image of this person.  This adds to the lie.

The hypocrite/sinner, if she is aware of the deceit, probably will try to hide who she has become and may look for a way to get back to who she knows she should be, but she won’t find it unless she turns to Jesus.

Barron says that this is “auto-salvation, thinking you can redeem yourself through heroic moral actions. He says it is a trap because it strengthens one’s egotism.”

“Sin is not a weakness that we can overcome but a condition from which we have to be saved.”

What’s Barron’s suggested solution?  “Relax and surrender.”  That is, let God save me through Jesus and His Gospel message about how we should be living.

WE ARE ALL SINNERS AND HYPOCRITES IN NEED OF SALVATION

And realize that this isn’t just happening to me.  Every one of us is struggling with this condition. As Pope Francis says, we are all sinners, except Jesus, Mary and, some say, John, the Baptist. We all are or, at one time or another, have been hypocrites.

That is why I love movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest and The Truman Show, which are luring the actors’ and the viewers’ hearts toward cheering the oddball main character (and ourselves!) to break out of our conditioned world and into the joy and happiness that was always there in front of us – our salvation.

Sister Loretta

1.  We all lead a “double life” or even a triple life, as Passionist Fr. Vincent Youngberg says, “We spend too much time worrying about the ‘me’ we want others to think I am and the ‘me’ I think I am and not enough time thinking about the ‘me’ God made me to be.”