A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr

…for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.

Find today’s readings here. 

The truth is often uncomfortable. Who among us has not heard a hard truth about oneself and responded defensively? Or even tried to shift the attention to someone else? 

In today’s Gospel, rather than facing the hard truths Jesus presents about their hypocrisy, the Pharisees “began to act with hostility toward him and to interrogate him about many things, for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.” They choose to undermine the truth rather than be changed.

It’s tempting to read about these actions with some sense of relief: Good thing we are not like those Pharisees, we say, as wars rage, migrants travel in peril, orphans and widows go unprotected, as we turn away and turn on Netflix.

Truly engaging with the truth of the Gospel message often requires that we feel unsettled. It is not easy to live our faith authentically and actively, to acknowledge both the ways in which we are fulfilling and failing the call to build God’s kingdom on earth. 

It can be uncomfortable, too, to imagine Jesus reacting with this kind of anger. So often we want to turn to him in his role as comforter. But his reaction here is one that urges us to move beyond the hard lines of a life based on rules in order to see the deeper questions and issues behind them. To ask about the spirit of what our faith asks of us, not simply follow the letter of the law. It asks us to live more truly and more deeply for others. 

If we allow ourselves to hear the truth, to understand the full weight of what is asked of us, we too may find ourselves uncomfortable. But it is in that discomfort that we might also find growth. And in acceptance of that truth as a guiding light, we might also see a better way forward.

Kerry Weber joined the staff of America in October 2009. Her writing and multimedia work have since earned several awards from the Catholic Press Association, and in 2013 she reported from Rwanda as a recipient of Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship. Kerry is the author of Mercy in the City: How to Feed the Hungry, Give Drink to the Thirsty, Visit the Imprisoned, and Keep Your Day Job (Loyola Press) and Keeping the Faith: Prayers for College Students (Twenty-Third Publications). A graduate of Providence College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously worked as an editor for Catholic Digest, a local reporter, a diocesan television producer, and as a special-education teacher on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.