In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites—they don’t practice what they preach. As the world continues to face the refugee crisis, war, violence, and poverty, I invite us to experience this world from the eyes of the poor and the suffering, and think about when and where we might have thought and behaved like the Pharisees.
Pope Francis addressed a gathering of a pilgrimage of Catholics and Lutherans from Germany, October 13, 2016, in these words: “It is hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty, toss out someone who is in need of help. If I say I am a Christian but do these things, then I am a hypocrite.”
Day by day we challenge ourselves to love more and love better. It is in this way that we are truly Christians, truly sisters and brothers in the Kingdom of God.
—Henoch Derbew, S.J., a scholastic of the US Northeast province, is currently studying philosophy at Loyola University Chicago.