Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Woe to Those

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 8-23-2021 | Aux. Bishop R. Barron

[MurphsLaw]

Monday, August 23, 2021

Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

Matthew 23:13-22

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus launches a blistering attack on the scribes and Pharisees.

The Son teaches, heals, preaches to, and forgives those who feel far from the mercy of God. He is the hand that the Father stretches out to sinners and to those who are lost. And by the same token, he is the judge of a sinful world. When the light of God’s forgiving love appears, the shadows of sin become all the deeper and more obvious. In light of him, there is nowhere to hide. And Jesus, the Word of the Father, gives voice to this judgment: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. . . ."

The Son names all those powers that are opposed to the creative and loving intentions of his Father. He speaks a word of judgment on a world grown cozy with sin. He "channels" all of the feelings of the Father toward the world: intense, forgiving love to those who are lost, and equally intense hatred for the structures of darkness.

[MurphsLaw]

+++Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you
hypocrites.
You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men.
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.

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say,
‘If one swears by the temple, it means
nothing,
but if one swears by the gold of the
temple, one is obligated.’
Blind fools, which is greater, the gold,
or the temple that made the gold sacred?+++

[ebb tide]

Bobby Barron is a heretic who dares hope Hell is empty, supports his fellow heretic, James Martin, S.J.’s encouragement of the homosexual lifestyle, and claims Jesus Christ is only the “privileged way” to salvation.

[Marchmain]

What exactly are “the structures of darkness”?

[MurphsLaw]

Those in the shadows of The Light of Christ -who is the light of the World... those in darkness who are won over by sin, and lead others into sin...
the structures are the evils in the world, whether it be found in a sexually abusive Mccarrick seminary, or in an abortion clinic or politician's office; or those that would cause the " little ones" who believe in Christ to Fall.. .

The structures of evil are all around.. .