THE REAL SELF

SABBATH

The sin that our Lord Jesus targets in His Gospel teaching today is none other than hypocrisy. The British biblical scholar William Barclay points out, “In popular opinion there is no sin more universally detested, and in the New Testament there is no sin more strongly condemned.” A remarkable statement as that should make us more aware or extra careful of our own hypocritical attitudes and behavior and, of course, heed our Lord’s teachings.  Originally (or etymologically), the word had no negative meaning at all. In classical Greek, the basic meaning ofhupokritēs is “one who answers.” In ancient Greece, stage plays followed a sort of questionand- answer format for the script; hence, an actor can be described as a hupokritēs, an answerer. Now it is in this context that hupokritēs develops its bad sense, as Barclay explains. It came to mean a “dissembler, one who is playing a part, putting on an act” (New Testament Words). Truly, a hypocrite (as we would say nowadays) is one who puts up a virtuous or holy external image, for example, but is in reality a morally reprehensible person deep inside. Just like in our Gospel today, the hypocrite is the one person who wants everyone to see him giving alms, praying and fasting. But as Barclay points out, “He is the man whose goodness is designed not to please God but to please men; the man who says not ‘To God be the glory’ but ‘To me be the credit.’” In today’s world of reality TV, celebrity culture, video game avatars and social networking websites, we ought to heed a lesson or two regarding this. We can easily put up fronts or masks and hide comfortably behind them. But what about the raw inner self deep within us? The transition to living double lives is much too easy and tempting. Jesus Christ invites to “go to our room, close the door” and do the hard task of confronting this raw inner self of ours. Unless we do, we will live our lives as though on a stage, in a movie world of sorts inhabited by makeup artists and actors. That is most certainly not the real self that Jesus asks of us to confront and to be. Fr. Martin Macasaet, SDB   Reflection Question: Who is the real you when no one is looking?   Grant me courage, Lord, to be truly who I am, without fear of what people might say or think about me.   St. Adelaide, pray for us.