We often reduce today's Gospel to a warning against ostentatious ritual clothing, but in reality Jesus doesn't really care about the clothes - it's the men wearing them that are the problem. Sinners who didn't realise the burden of sin they carried, who outwardly kept the law but were inwardly corrupt, who judged instead of helping. Jesus' real target was hypocrisy. My ward against that same mentality is to wear the maniple, and to know why I wear it. Wearing a maniple is an antidote to clerical hypocrisy - a symbol of the sin I carry around and are supposed to lift from the shoulders of others.
Although I wrote the thought for the week, the picture on the front of today’s Newsletter was chosen by Canon Dominic. He told me he wasn’t going to use it because he thought it looked like a criticism of me and the vestments I wear. I told him to put it in anyway, because (as it happened) I was planning on talking about the priests’ vestments, one in particular. After Easter I commissioned some new sets of vestments for Mass, from Poland. Since I started using them about a month ago, some of the more eagle-eyed members of the congregation in Town have commented on this little strip of fabric I wear over my left arm. What they have said about it is split by age. The parishioners born around 1960 or earlier have said “I’ve not seen a priest use one of them since I was a child” and the ones born after then (mostly, I have to add, children) have asked “what’s that thing you’ve got on your arm?”
Today’s Gospel is one of those Sundays where every priest, myself included, is tempted to wear our shabbiest clothes, our most worn out shoes, and the ugliest (or at least plainest) vestments we can find; Jesus seems to be taking aim at the Pharisees for what they’re wearing. Being the shallow creatures we are, we often focus on the long tassels and broad phylacteries. But his criticism isn’t really about the Pharisees clothes, but about their hypocrisy. There is a direct link between that criticism, and my decision to wear this little strip of fabric over my left arm - called a Maniple.
Like every vestment, the Maniple started off as a practical garment and over time gained a symbolic meaning. In the early church, the priests were often known to weep, to cry, as they broke the consecrated host – so intense was their devotion to the Lord’s passion that they seemed to suffer it with Him. More prosaically, the Mediterranean was hot, and they also used to sweat quite considerably. The maniple began life as a type of handkerchief, tied over the sleeve to wipe away the tears and the sweat. Tears and sweat, caused by sorrow and hard labour, are products (of a sort) of sin. The priest, at various points in the Mass, acts on behalf of Christ. He participates in divine things, but he remains human. He is the minister of Christ, but he is not Christ. He is still a sinner. So, to stop him mistaking himself for Christ he ties this strip of cloth that gets in the way, that slips down his forearm, that threatens to knock things over as he reaches across the altar, as a symbol of the burden of sin – which gets in the way and messes things up.
In the Old Covenant, men also had a way to remind themselves of the law and the burden of sin. They put little fragments of the scripture into boxes called phylacteries and tied them around their heads. They tied tassels to the four corners of their clothes to represent the 613 commandments. Both garments were required by the Law. But the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, wore extra-large phylacteries, and extra-long tassels. Why does Jesus criticise them?
As I said at the beginning; it’s not about the clothes! The passage we read today is the beginning of a long diatribe against the Pharisees, where again and again he attacks them for hypocrisy. He says it at the beginning; they do not practice what they preach. They have bound the law around their heads in big boxes, and tied it around their waists in long tassels, for everyone to see, but they do not follow the law themselves. They have all the trappings of the law, they follow it to the letter, but they do not follow its spirit. They tie up heavy burdens, He says, but do not lift even a finger to help people lift them. The Law was exacting, it required a lot, but the Pharisees did nothing to help people live by it. They taught it, they berated people for failing to live up to it, they saw to it that people who broke it were punished, but they did nothing to help.
This is the difference between the Pharisee and the priest of the New Covenant. The burden of sin is the same, and the demands God makes of us are (if anything) even greater than they were before. But the priest of the New Covenant is able to do what the Pharisees wouldn't do, because the priest of the New Covenant acts in the place of Christ who was sent by the Father; sent to forgive sins, sent to give His body as food and his blood as drink, sent to pour out the Holy Spirit into the wounds of people’s lives through prayer and the sacraments.
Jesus says call no man Father, call no man teacher, call no man master, because only God is Father, only the Christ is teacher and Master. He is exaggerating to make a point. Just as the Pharisees sit in Moses’ chair, those who call themselves Father whether a priest or a biological Father, occupy the place of God the Father. Those who call themselves teacher or master occupy the place of Christ. They have to be unlike the Pharisees; they have to live up to the chair they occupy. Fathers must be both just and merciful, slow to anger. Teachers must teach the truth with charity. Masters, those with power, must exercise it fairly. Failing to do so is to take a name that doesn’t belong to you and do dishonour to the one to whom that name belongs.
The challenge today’s Gospel presents us is the challenge made by St Benedict in His Rule;
Do not aspire to be called holy before you really are, but first be holy that you may more truly be called so.
In other words – practice what we preach. What good is it to wear a crucifix or a miraculous medal, or to carry round a rosary, or tell everyone what good Catholics we are, if we go around fighting with one another. If we’re quick tempered or impatient with one another. What damage we do if our charity ends at the Church door, if having given the kiss of peace and received the Eucharist, our next word is harsh or critical of our brothers and sisters. What a scandal we would be to the world if they looked into the Church doors, or the church car park, or the church dinner and saw arguments and division instead of charity.
That’s the challenge, but the hope we have is that Christ has come to help us carry the burden, to strengthen us when we are weak and to help us to do better when we are failing. St Benedict, after rattling off a long exhortation to charity, reminds us of this as well, he says to his monks ‘and finally, never lose hope in the mercy of God.’ The priest, who acts on behalf of Christ, makes us aware of the burden we have to carry, but through prayer, and the sacraments, and practical advice, helps us to carry it.
The day I say no, when someone comes to me for confession, the day I say no, when I get that late night or early morning phone call to go to the hospice to give the last rites, the day I say no, to taking Communion to the housebound, the day I neglect to pray for the people who have asked for prayer, is the day my priesthood dies. Because on that day I have decided, having laid the heavy burden of the Gospel on someone’s shoulders not to lift a finger to help them carry it. I wear this maniple on my arm, not for show, but because I need a reminder of the burden of Sin I carry around. A reminder that, if I won’t lift that burden for you, there is nobody (not even Christ Himself) who will lift the burden for me.
XXXI Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
Gospel Reading: Matthew 23:1-12
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