Message of Abbot Paul - Monday 23rd August
Message from Fr Paul for Monday, 23rd August 2021
Today the Universal Church keeps the feast of St Rose of Lima, although in Peru and throughout Latin America her solemnity is still kept on 30th August. She was baptised Isabel (Elizabeth), but she was such a beautiful baby that everyone said she looked like a rose. In fact, a servant claimed to have seen her little face transformed into a rose, so the nickname stuck. When she was eleven years’ old, she was confirmed by St Toribius of Mogrovejo, Archbishop of Lima, one of the most attractive of the Church’s saints and a great hero of mine. She remained a lay woman, but belonged to the Dominican Third Order, and lived a life of prayer and penance at home, giving everything she had and all she could find to the poor, who came to the door of her parents’ house. She was the first saint born in the Americas to be canonised. Born on 20th April 1586, she died on 24th August 1617, then as now the feast of St Bartholomew. Let us implore her prayers for the people of Peru and especially for our monks in Lurin, whose present monastery was founded two years before the birth of St Rose.
Today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, (Mt 23: 13-22), continues where we left off on Saturday, with Jesus criticising the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy and total lack of spiritual care for those on whom they impose the burden of an excessive interpretation of the Law. Let’s listen to some of what he has to say:
“Jesus said: ‘Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You who shut up the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces, neither going in yourselves nor allowing others to go in who want to.
‘Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You who travel over sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when you have him you make him twice as fit for hell as you are.
‘Alas for you, blind guides! You who say, “If a man swears by the Temple, it has no force; but if a man swears by the gold of the Temple, he is bound.” Fools and blind! For which is of greater worth, the gold or the Temple that makes the gold sacred?”
We could ask if Jesus was too severe in his judgement and criticism of the scribes and Pharisees. Did they really wield such power and did the people follow their teaching? From what Jesus says, they would appear to care little for the mercy and loving kindness of God, his understanding of human nature and his fatherly longing for our conversion and eternal salvation. Far from their vision of God would have been a loving and forgiving father as in the parable of the Prodigal Son or a Messiah after the image of the Good Samaritan. They were far from proclaiming a God of love, whose love for us should be the basis for our love of God and neighbour. We remember that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the Saviour who has come to reconcile us with God and with each other.
Lord, may we never be tempted to act as the scribes and Pharisees did, but rather, like you, indeed with you and in you, to pray and work assiduously every day for the salvation of all your sons and daughters, no matter who or where they might be. Amen.
