Duality or integral practice: branches and Roots

(Mt 23:23–32)

    On how to remain on the Path that fosters growth, and to fulfil one’s natural calling, the Tao Te Ching states (LIX):

‘ ‘Sink deep roots and strengthen the trunk: this is the Way of long life and eternal youth.’

And Master Wang Pi comments: ‘To accumulate virtue means to focus on the root and only then to raise the branches.’

When the leaders of a dubious form of religiosity seek to gain credibility, they dwell on abstract ideas or minutiae, and turn a blind eye to what is aberrant.

In ancient times, the duplicity between what they displayed and what they practised was proverbial.

To conceal their ignoble spirit of plunder (v. 25), they conjure up all manner of legalistic subtleties, thereby overshadowing the essential requirements.

Even in Israel, they never followed the line taken by the Prophets: they plotted to make Jesus—who was exposing them—suffer, seeking to discourage him with mocking insults and accusations—with the aim of undermining his boldness.

Yet the new Rabbi continued his scathing condemnation of religious formalism, which created barriers to any profound exploration of the motivations behind one’s actions. 

Nevertheless, his story helps us to understand that even the harsh circumstances and the ambiguous attitudes of the leaders themselves can be an opportunity and a starting point.

Perhaps a gift, to take action. The inner man comes alive even by shattering a mask, a role, a formal duty, a persona; an established icon of wanting to appear rather than to be.

For us today, too, it is a matter of taking the greatest risk with Christ, in favour of a long inner adventure.

Here we touch upon those realms where the Call by Name is unlike any other.

There, where we encounter ourselves, our deepest vocational identity, our unexpressed talents, and the divine Author’s signature, in Uniqueness.

If we do not silence it, then the vocational Seed that does not lie, and which guides, will emerge within us; the Risen One, present, who reveals himself to be understanding, gentle, attentive, utterly personal, yet clear.

Attention to detail and minutiae is good and driving (v.23) only if it is united with this intimate discovery of one’s own unique Mission.

Here, the call to fundamental values does not imply indifference or contempt for what seems secondary: such a call may conceal a unique character.

Without extreme incentives, the motive behind our actions might well remain self-interest and concern for one’s own reputation, and so on.

This would pervade the soul through inaction or silence, rendering the lived experience of Faith barren and discredited.

In this way, even an internal or external contradiction can help bring forth our deepest self.

Even anger at disorder can trigger growth, so that we may live up to our Name.

Thus… we put down roots and strengthen the trunk; we stimulate an inner youthfulness. Keeping our sights set on the hidden Seed, before we let our branches grow.

The Master proposes a return to the essential – so too that we may follow the ‘unique and specific path that the Lord has in store for us’ [Gaudete et Exsultate, no. 11].

All this stems from a great desire to be born anew, in both small and great things, so that we may bring forth our deepest self.

To internalise and live out the message:

What is your well-filtered gnat, which someone has conditioned you to regard as a camel? What twisted monstrosity have you been forced to swallow, so that you might be deemed fit to follow the Lord?

Beautiful on the outside, rotten on the inside

Appearances: emptiness

(Mt 23:27–32)

    John Chrysostom writes in his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew:

‘If one could open up the conscience of every person, how many worms, how much rot and what unimaginable stench would we find within. Vile and perverse desires, filthier even than the worms themselves’ (73:2).

Perhaps we were taken aback by the Pope’s stern stance against cheerful, casual and ambiguous forms of asset management, and in the realm of morality within the Catholic Church – a veritable campaign of clerical reform, which has gone so far as to reopen prisons.

But in taking a stand against the system of grand pretensions [hypocrisy and incoherent outward show], Jesus goes even further.

He does so in the face of the ancient authorities, the religious leaders and those who trade in the sacred – leaders who preserve their reputations, their ideas and their image, yet are radically unfaithful.

He laments their false and proper outward appearance, whilst inwardly they are the total negation of the respect for God that they put on display.

In this way, they allow the dark side of the world to fester, instead of helping us to rid ourselves of it.

The ostentatious piety shown towards the great ancestors betrays a guilt complex (vv. 29–32), not a deep, intimate conviction – the unifying core of being and action.

Hysteria that exorcises the vice of the ‘chosen ones’ of all time: getting rid of those who unmask their empty existence; as well as their well-adorned, intellectual or legalistic influence, which still confines the lives of so many people to tombs.

Spiritual masters are on the scene not to put themselves on display – nor to present themselves as menacing guides.

They must act to do good, to bring colour and new life; to foster authentic situations and new, uplifting and creative content.

In his detailed Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, St Jerome writes:

‘ Outwardly, the tombs are whitewashed with lime, adorned with marble and gold, resplendent in their colours; but inside they are full of the bones of the dead. So too are the perverse teachers, who say one thing and do another: in their dress they display purity and in their words humility; but inside they are full of every kind of rot and every impure desire’ (4).

The Lord calls for a renewal that reaches deep within, more intimate than mere superficial agitation; one that touches the very place and dimension of our encounter with the Father.

He is not satisfied with ‘monuments’ that harbour a surprise within.

We are always tempted to remain on the level of a beautified surface, in search of easy and immediate satisfactions, esteem and honour – especially we priests, who not infrequently love to lull ourselves with futile accolades.

And our various theatres of ostentatious yet hollow religiosity are more than willing to cloak the membership of the leading actors in the civilisation of fiction – clean and adorned – with spiritual prestige.

We are content with superficial things – why? Encountering oneself, others and reality requires a heavy commitment: that of questioning oneself; of stepping outside forms and external fashions.

But good manners are not enough to cover up so many terrible habits.

The false security of presenting our soap-opera façade is no longer enough: a figure adorned with even religious and devout status that one wishes to display.

The hypocrisy of complacent interpretations or over-the-top characterisations is an attitude that is not infrequently disguised and even criminal.

It is cheerfully leading us towards the dark evil of the most decadent emptiness and widespread sadness.

The whitewashed tombs of our premature graveyard appear sacred and graceful, but we know what they sometimes contain.

Not always crystalline diamonds; not always expressions of a direct connection with others and with God.

Therefore, the surprising commitment of the current hierarchies to internal purification remains a firm and entirely appropriate principle.

It is life that matters and must be promoted, not the papier-mâché facade of all that is unknown or hidden which has grown within our homes.

Indeed, it is precisely the mannerists or modernists, the superficial moralisers, the most vain proponents of ritual beauty or the latest fashions… who turn out to be the worst sort of people – leading double lives; lovers of a satrap-like style [perhaps for social redemption].

Herein lies the confusion of ideas, even for oneself, and the paradoxical act of disidentification.

In short, the ostentatiousness of grandeur and pretence, or of glossy facades that are always winking at us, is a sort of projection.

An artifice that prevents the formation of thoughts; it merely wards off exhausting nightmares – in the most childish way.

Love, on the other hand, thrives on real sparks – it does not pass through them unscathed, content to represent itself merely in decorative symbols, or in the ideology that lures the naive.

Screens of incredible emptiness.

Whilst recognising the legitimacy of the facets of great artistic expressions and differing opinions, Jesus would have endorsed the principle of the Anglo-Saxon puritanical laity: ‘The greater the ceremonies, the lesser the Truth’.

To internalise and live out the message:

Which forms of clerical hypocrisy [or blind adherence] annoy you, despite their ostentation?