Word of the day

A reading from the Second letter to Thessalonians
2 THES 3:6-10, 16-18

We instruct you, brothers and sisters,
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
to shun any brother
who walks in a disorderly way
and not according to the tradition they received from us.
For you know how one must imitate us.
For we did not act in a disorderly way among you,
nor did we eat food received free from anyone.
On the contrary, in toil and drudgery, night and day we worked,
so as not to burden any of you.
Not that we do not have the right.
Rather, we wanted to present ourselves as a model for you,
so that you might imitate us.
In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that
if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.

May the Lord of peace himself
give you peace at all times and in every way.
The Lord be with all of you.

This greeting is in my own hand, Paul’s.
This is the sign in every letter; this is how I write.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you.

From the Gospel according to Matthew
MT 23:27-32

Jesus said,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside,
but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.
Even so, on the outside you appear righteous,
but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You build the tombs of the prophets
and adorn the memorials of the righteous,
and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors,
we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’
Thus you bear witness against yourselves
that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets;
now fill up what your ancestors measured out!”

It is an interior freedom, which leads to doing “good in secret, without sounding the trumpet”: indeed, “the way of true religion is the same way of Jesus: humility, humiliation”. Inasmuch that Jesus —  Paul to the Philippians — “humbled himself, he emptied himself”. And, this is the only way to take selfishness, greed, arrogance, vanity and worldliness, away from us. Faced with this example we find instead the attitude of those whom Jesus reproaches: “people who follow the religion of makeup: the appearance, to appear, pretending to seem” a certain way “while inside...”. Jesus evokes a very powerful image, “You are whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanliness”. (Santa Marta, 11 October 2016)