The Pharisees and Scribes
- POPE FRANCIS
They observed the law: on the Sabbath they didn't walk more than one hundred meters.
And they never went to the table without washing their hands and performing ablutions; they were very law-abiding, very firm in their ways. However...this is true only in appearances. They were strong, but outwardly. They were cast in plaster. The heart was very weak; they didn't know what they believed in. And this is why their life was, the outward portion, completely regulated; but their heart went from one side to the other....
Jesus, on the contrary, teaches us that Christians must have a strong, steadfast heart, which grows upon the rock that is Christ, and which moves with prudence.... This is the drama of the hypocrisy of these people. And Jesus never negotiated his heart as the Son of the Father, but he was open with people, looking for ways to help. The others, rather, said: "You can't do this; our discipline, our doctrine says that you can't do this."... In other words, "they were rigid in their discipline" and believed: "The discipline is not to be touched, it's sacred."
Pharisees were like this — "our discipline" — rigid in the flesh, but as Jesus says, "decayed in the heart," weak until decayed. Darkness in the heart.... Sometimes, when I've seen a Christian man or woman like this, with a weak heart, not firm, not steadfast on the rock, and with so much outward rigidity, I have asked the Lord: Throw down a banana peel in front of him, so he takes a good slip, is ashamed of being a sinner, and thus encounters you, who are the Savior.... Lord, cast light on the darkness of our hearts; that our hearts may be steadfast in faith.
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Acknowledgement
Pope Francis. "The Pharisees and Scribes." From Morning Meditation in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae (December 15, 2014).
Reprinted with permission of Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
The Author
Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936. He became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and a cardinal in 2011. He was elected Pope on March 13, 2013. He is the first pope to be a Jesuit, to come from the Americas, and to come from the Southern Hemisphere. He is the author of Laudato Si, Encountering Truth: Meeting God in the Everyday, The Joy of the Gospel: Evangelii Gaudium, The Church of Mercy, Walking with Jesus: A Way Forward for the Church, and Through the Year with Pope Francis: Daily Reflections.
