“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves.” (Mt. 23:13-15 NABRE)
Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees in today’s Gospel because they were not practicing what they were preaching. The scribes and Pharisees focused only on the externals of their faith, and did not focus on the internal state of their hearts. They performed rituals and carried out their roles as religious leaders in a haughty manner, but did not cultivate true communion with God in their hearts.
We’ve all gone through periods of going through the motions in our journey of faith. Perhaps, we’ve prayed our prayers out of routine and habit, gone to Mass without focusing or paying attention, or talked to others about our beliefs while not truly living them out or being in true communion with the Lord.
In other words, there are times when we act like the Pharisees. We may talk the talk, but not walk the walk.
If we ever find ourselves going through the motions in our relationship with God, we must acknowledge the need for renewal. We must strive to pray to the Lord with our hearts and not just with our words or actions. We must be sincere and genuine in our desire to be close to Jesus. Unlike the scribes and Pharisees, may we truly live out our faith with our hearts, and not through empty routines or habits.