Quote of the Dei (# 8)

Ben Connolly's "Prodigal Son"

"The church is a hospital for sinners, not a club for saints."

- unknown author

True Hypocrisy

photo courtesy of Selina Mayer

“A man once said to me: I don’t go to church because I don’t want to be with a bunch of hypocrites.

I replied: Well, one more won’t hurt!”

- Mother Angelica

Hypocrisy is often used as propaganda against Christianity. To my mind, this is due to misunderstanding what the word hypocrisy truly means.

What is hypocrisy? St. Thomas Aquinas defined hypocrisy as not failing to be good but rather pretending to be good.

In other words, hypocrisy is not failing to live up to an ideal but rather the pretense of being ideal. Therefore, a philandering husband who feigns fidelity to his wife in order to gain the admiration of others is a hypocrite. In this regard, we note that:

Philandering discredits the philanderer, not fidelity.

Hypocrisy is not failing to practice what one preaches but rather failing to believe what one preaches. Therefore, a father who forbids his children to lie but doesn’t really put stock in honesty himself and is unremorseful about his own lying is a hypocrite. In this regard, we note that:

Lying discredits the liar, not honesty. 

Jesus Christ commanded His followers to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Sanctity, without the grace of God, is not just hard, but impossible. For this reason, we should always pray for the wisdom, strength and courage to live our lives according to God’s will. And each time we fall, we can pick ourselves up by repenting, confessing and resolving to sin no more. What we cannot and should not do is give up our aim for holiness because we fear being called hypocrites.

It’s also been said that “hypocrisy is the price that vice pays to virtue”. If this is the case, then Christians should be willing to pay that price. In this regard, we note that:

Hypocrisy discredits the hypocrite, not Christianity.

The Real Face of Jesus? 2

The post with the most page views on this blog is “The Real Face of Jesus?” which is based on the HISTORY channel special. This maybe because both believers and unbelievers alike are interested to see what’s probably the most accurate image ever made of Jesus.

The creative team behind the awesome images are the graphic artists from Studio Macbeth headed by Ray Downing. Upon visiting their website, I found out that they have made new renderings based on the Shroud of Turin.

HISTORY channel also collaborated once again with Studio Macbeth for a new special titled “Jesus: The Lost Forty Days”. While the new visuals are stunning, the same cannot be said of the documentary. The running time is overly extended by rehashed content from “The Real Face of Jesus”. The documentary also jumps on the “Da Vinci Code” bandwagon and gives too much attention and credence to the heresy of Gnosticism and the so-called gnostic gospels. We must remember that the early Christian Church, naturally the best judge of which stories about and which teachings of Jesus were authentic, condemned the gnostic or “lost” gospels as heretical. Nevertheless, the new images depicting our Lord are worth seeing.

All images courtesy of:
www.raydowning.com
www.history.com