This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time and today’s Gospel reading comes from Matthew 21:28-32. The religious leaders question Jesus’ authority, He asks them about the origin of John the Baptist’s baptism: God or man. The leaders were afraid of the crowd and did not care to seek the truth. They refused to say John’s baptism came from man, because they knew the crowd saw him as a prophet. They also refused to say his baptism came from God, because Jesus would ask them why they did not follow John. In the end, Jesus criticized them through a parable. Once, there was a father who told his two sons to do some work: the first agreed but ended up not doing the work, while the second refused but ended up doing it. Jesus asked which son did the will of the father and the leaders answered the second son. Jesus then said that the tax collectors and prostitutes would enter heaven before them because they refused to believe John the Baptist even after seeing him. From this, we can see that actions are greater than words and even a lay person who keeps the commandments is greater than a hypocritical consecrated person. Religious leaders must always be mindful of their station and must not praise God with their lips while doing the opposite in their actions. They are vulnerable to pride because they often delude themselves into thinking they cannot sin, whereas public sinners tend to realize their faults and repent. Perhaps we, because of lack of discipline, waste much time on the Internet and forsake our duties like the first son. We should practice discipline and serve God instead of ourselves.
「Spiritual Talk」Twenty Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Fr. Anthony Ho
