TUESDAY, TWENY FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
2 Thes 2: 1-3, 14-17 Ps 96: 10-13 Mt 23: 23-26
THE POWER OF AUTHENTICITY
The world of advertisement coupled with artificial intelligence has reshaped our modern culture and our thinking patterns. While a lot of good has been done by this changing mindset, it has also taken away authenticity from human culture, which is essential for human growth and development. While advertisements depend exclusively on human opinions and persuade people to act according to its dictates, AI and algorithms give you the information based on the previous encounters leading to determined conclusions. However, these lack authenticity because these are not based on the free decision, values or convictions of man.
The readings of today speak about such ethical polarities found between authenticity and hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is based on what is convenient to us and which gives the greatest gratifications of life. The Thessalonians who were lazy and escaped from work, living leisurely now finds an excuse not to work based on the false teaching of the immanent second coming of Christ. In the Gospel Jesus admonishes the Scribes and Pharisees for not paying attention to the beneficial laws of human life rather justifying the non-appropriation of trivial laws.
As against the glorification of hypocrisy as a mode of living, the readings emphasize the power of authentic living. St. Paul cautions the Thessalonians not to be deceived by such false teachings but to live always in accordance with the traditions of the Gospel and to have a firm conviction that God is ever present to them here and now. Jesus tells the Jews to clean their hearts and minds so that they may live a life of inner convictions rather than waste time with the exteriors of life. The power of authenticity in fact will lead us to a new dimension of Christian living, because authenticity is something in which we are inborn and is exclusively given to us as grace at Baptism. When we live in accordance with the gift of grace, with total freedom and with inner convictions, we become people stronger than any functional world ideology can handle. Are we courageous enough to live up to our inner convictions against popular functionality?
Response: The Lord comes to judge the earth.
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