Word to the Wise
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - Wednesday in the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
[2 Kings 2:1, 6-14 and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18]Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.
At first glance this statement seems to contradict or seems at least at odds with a statement just one chapter earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, "Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father." The way through the apparent contradiction seems to touch, as so much of the Sermon on the Mount does, on one's motivations and interior dispositions! The actions must spring from a desire for God and not from a desire for public approval! Prayer, fasting and almsgiving were actions that were considered desirable forms of religious behavior in Jesus' time but some of the Pharisees had turned these actions into performances designed to enhance their public prestige. The tension between personal/private asceticism and public forms of the same is one that I, for one, live with. Is the need for public witness so strong that it is necessary to let people know that I'm doing something as a matter of religious faith? Friends have noticed that I maintain the no-meat tradition on Friday (whenever I have a choice). But that would not attract much attention from the general public unless I stood up in the restaurant or at the family table and proclaimed it in a loud voice! Some matters of faith do seem to require a more public demonstration, but questions of personal asceticism leave it to the individual. My own belief is that these personal actions should have but one goal, to help one be a more faithful Christian. I think, in the long run, the public witness will simply show in the general demeanor of the person. We don't have to practice some of the more vivid physical austerities of saints that we read about. However, interior and exterior asceticism should be of one piece and part of a single desire for God. It will show and give off light! AMEN
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