11 - 21 - 17 Avoiding Hypocrisy
Link to Daily Readings I think what the story of Eleazar demonstrates are two very related points. One being that this thing, this religion, this faith, should be the most important thing in our life, indeed more important than our insignificant earthly life. The second thing I see is that it is not only what we do that matters, but what others see. I’m going to dive into the second one first. The immediate danger I see here is hypocrisy, if one should fail to live up to the standards one claims in public, or pride, whereby when we do succeed we count it as personal strength. I think it’s useful to play off Jesus’s imperative to pray in secret and do good in secret. “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” We seem kind of stuck here between two places. There is the call to evangelization (through example, martyrdom, proselytizing) but this endeavor brings with it many spiritual dangers. Simply by drawing other people’s attenti