Pharisee is a name meaning those who are set apart. They followed a way of life which they regarded as most perfect. They esteemed their way as superior to others. They affirmed the resurrection of the dead, the existence of angels, and holiness of life.^[1] They followed a rigorous way of life, practicing asceticism and sexual abstinence for periods of time and fasting twice a week.^[2] They ceremonially cleansed their pots and plates and cups,^[3] as did the scribes. They observed the paying of tithes,^[4] the offering of first fruits, and the recitation of many prayers.^[5]

So let us devote ourselves to those at peace in their devotion to God, and not to those who seek peace through hypocrisy. For he says in one place: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.^[1] And again: They blessed with their mouth, but they cursed in their heart.^[2] And again he says: They flattered him with their mouths; they lied to him with their tongues. Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not true to his covenant.^[3] 1

God considers our inward thoughts. Remember Lot’s wife. All she did was voluntarily to turn her head back toward worldly corruption. She was left a senseless mass, a pillar of salt.^[1]

The Pharisees claimed that the traditions of their elders safeguarded the law, but in fact it contravened the law Moses had given. By saying: Your merchants mix water with the wine, Isaiah shows that the elders mixed their watery tradition with God’s strict commandment. They enjoined an adulterated law at cross-purposes with the divine law. The Lord made this clear when he asked them: Why do you transgress God’s commandment for the sake of your tradition? By their transgression they not only falsified God’s law, mixing water with the wine, but they also set against it their own law, called to this day the Pharisaic law. In this their rabbis suppress some of the commandments, add new ones, and give others their own interpretation, thus making the law serve their own purposes.

The Lord himself discussed that commandment of the law which says: Honor thy father and thy mother.^[1] He made it clear that it is to be interpreted not as mere words, which, while offering an empty show of honor to parents, might still leave them poor and their necessities unrelieved. Instead the honor of parents should focus on the actual provision of the necessities of life. The Lord commanded that poor parents should be supported by their children who would reimburse them back when they are old for all those benefits which they themselves received in childhood. The scribes and Pharisees instead were teaching children to honor their parents by saying: It is corban, that is to say, a gift which I have promised to the altar and will present at the temple, where it will relieve you as much as if I were to give it to you directly to buy food.^[2] So it frequently happened that while father and mother were destitute, their children were offering sacrifices for the priests and scribes to consume.

The condemnation of those who have knowledge yet do not put their knowledge into practice is more severe. Even sin committed in ignorance is not without risk.

Christ says, Care for the poor;^[1] Mammon says, Take away even those things the poor possess. Christ says, Empty yourself of what you have;^[2] Mammon says, Take also what they possess. Do you see the opposition, the strife between them? See how it is that one cannot obey both, but must reject one? . . . Christ says, None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions;^[3] Mammon says, Take the bread from the hungry. Christ says, Cover the naked;^[4] the other says, Strip the naked. Christ says, You shall not turn away from your own family,^[5] and those of your own house;^[6] Mammon says, You shall not show mercy to those of your own family. Though you see your mother or your father in want, despise them.^[7]

Let us, then, his servants, follow our Lord and patiently submit to denunciations that we may be blessed! If, with slight forbearance, I hear some bitter or evil remark directed against me, I may return it, and then I shall inevitably become bitter myself. Either that, or I shall be tormented by unexpressed resentment. If I retaliate when cursed, how shall I be found to have followed the teaching of our Lord? For his saying has been handed down that one is defiled not by unclean dishes but by the words which proceed from his mouth.^[1]

When we read in Leviticus^[1] and Deuteronomy^[2] of the laws about food as clean and unclean (for the transgression of which we are censured by the legalists and by the Ebionites, who differ from them very little), we are not to think that the scope of the Scripture is found in any superficial understanding of them. For whatever goes into a person from the outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and so passes on.^[3] According to Mark, the Savior declared all food clean,^[4] so we are not defiled when we eat those things declared to be unclean by those who still desire to be in bondage to the letter of the law. But we are then defiled when our lips, which ought to be bound with good judgment as we search for correct balance and weight, speak recklessly and discuss matters we ought not.

This is an answer to those who consider that evil thoughts are simply injected by the devil and that they do not spring from our own will. He can add strength to our bad thoughts and inflame them, but he cannot originate them.

He withdrew, perhaps because the Pharisees were offended when they heard that What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.^[1] . . . It is probable that he sought to avoid the Pharisees, who were offended at his teaching, while he was waiting for the time of his impending suffering—a time suitably and duly appointed.

The Gentiles, those who dwell on the borders, can be saved if they believe. . . . Think of it this way: Each of us when he sins is living on the borders of Tyre or Sidon or of Pharaoh and Egypt. They are on the borders of those who are outside the inheritance of God.

His divine will was all-powerful, yet it was said that he was unable to conceal himself when he willed to. Why? It was while willing within the limits of his humanity that he was [voluntarily] subject to the limitations of the flesh. As a human he possessed the common human ability to will. . . . The sanctification of his will did not occur by circumventing his natural volition but by uniting his will with the divine and almighty will, as the will of God incarnate. Hence when he wished to be hid, he could not do so of himself,^[1] because it pleased God that the Word be revealed in himself as having the limitations of human willing.

For you, as women, have the very same angelic nature promised^[1] as your reward, the very same sexual respect as men. You have the same dignity in making moral judgments. This the Lord promises to women.

Have you not heard of the Syrophoenician woman? By the constancy of her entreaty, she elicited the Lord’s compassion.

If God invariably listened to every supplicant equally, he might appear to us to act from some necessity rather than from his own free will.

Those who possess the Holy Spirit search out the deep places of God^[1]—in other words, they attain the hidden secrets that surround prophecy. But it is forbidden to share holy things with dogs, as long as they remain wild. It is never appropriate to dilute the pure stream of divinity, the living water,^[2] for interests that are full of malice, disturbed persons, still without faith, who are unrestrained in barking at the hunt.

Some people, intent on severe disciplinary precepts, admonish us to rebuke the restless and not to give what is holy to dogs,^[1] to consider a despiser of the church as a heathen,^[2] to cut off from the unified structure of the body the member who causes scandal.^[3] These may so disturb the peace of the church that they try prematurely to separate out the wheat from the chaff^[4] before the proper time, and blinded by this pretext, they themselves then become separated from the unity of Christ.

She was crying out [as] she was following after him, Have mercy on me. But he did not reply to her.^[1] The silence of our Lord elicited an even deeper cry by the Canaanite woman. He who was spurned by Israel spurned her by his silence, but she did not give up. Though neglected, she did not hold back. On the contrary, she again humbled herself and again magnified Israel, by [her words], Even the dogs eat from their masters’ [crumbs],^[2] as though the Jews were masters of the Gentiles. His disciples therefore drew near and begged him to send her away.^[3] . . . She was not ashamed, to her own benefit, of the name of dogs. Therefore [he said], Great is your faith, O woman.^[4]

That power which may not be handled came down and clothed itself in members that may be touched, that the desperate may draw near to him, that in touching his humanity they may discern his divinity. For that speechless man the Lord healed with the fingers of his body. He put his fingers into the man’s ears and touched his tongue. At that moment with fingers that may be touched, he touched the Godhead that may not be touched. Immediately this loosed the string of his tongue,^[1] and opened the clogged doors of his ears. For the very architect of the body itself and artificer of all flesh had come personally to him, and with his gentle voice tenderly opened up his obstructed ears. Then his mouth which had been so closed up that it could not give birth to a word, gave birth to praise him who made its barrenness fruitful. The One who immediately had given to Adam speech without teaching, gave speech to him so that he could speak easily a language that is learned only with difficulty.^[2]

The Spirit is called the finger of God. When the Lord put his fingers into the ears of the deaf mute, he was opening the soul of man to faith through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Every sabbath we witness the opening up of a mystery. It is in outline form the type of that liturgical opening when the minister once touched your ears and nostrils.^[1] What does this mean? Remember in the Gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ, when the deaf and dumb man was presented to him, touched his ears and his mouth: the ears, because he was deaf; the mouth, because he was dumb. And he said: Ephphatha, a Hebrew word, which in Latin means adaperire [be opened]. In this way the minister is now touching your ears, that your ears may be opened to this sermon and exhortation.

So open your ears and enjoy the good odor of eternal life which has been breathed upon you by the grace of the sacraments. This we pointed out to you as we celebrated the mystery of the opening and said: Ephphatha, that is, Be opened, so that everyone about to come to the table of grace might know what he was asked and remember the way he once responded. Christ celebrated this mystery in the Gospel, as we read, when he healed the one who was deaf and dumb.

He thereby declared that it would shortly come to pass, that those^[1] who were destitute of the revealed truth would both hear and understand the majestic words of God. Accordingly you may truly call those deaf who do not hear the heavenly things which are true, and worthy of being performed. He loosed the tongues of the dumb. They spoke plainly—a power worthy of admiration^[2] even in its ordinary operation. But there was also contained in this display of power another meaning. It would shortly come to pass that those who were previously ignorant of heavenly things, having received the instruction of wisdom, might soon speak God’s own truth.

Deafened ears, of sound unconscious,

every passage blocked and closed,

At the word of Christ responding,

all the portals open wide,

Hear with joy friendly voices and

the softly whispered speech.^[1]

Every sickness now surrenders,

every listlessness departs,^[2]

Tongues long bound by chains of silence

are unloosed and speak aright,^[3]

While the joyful paralytic

bears his pallet through the streets.^[4] HYMNS 9.^[1]