27 August 2024: Tuesday of the 21st week
Thess. 2:1...17; Matt. 23:23-26
Homily
Today's Gospel is a continuation of yesterday's Gospel. It is a long list of ‘curses’ that Jesus hurls at the Pharisees. The authors of our liturgical lectionary no doubt felt that it would have been a bit too cumbersome to read these ‘curses’ all at once, even if it wouldn't have been such a long read. What Jesus was criticising above all of the scribes and Pharisees in the first part was their hypocrisy. In the text we have just read, He continues on the same theme, and even more explicitly. He mentions two more concrete forms of hypocrisy.