Hypocrisy in Me? —Purity of Intention –II

Lourdes Pinto

Hypocrisy in Me? Purity of Intention —Part II

Cenacle teaching 7/18/19

Þ   Today we shall focus on how to correct our hypocrisy

Þ   Our victory over hypocrisy will never be a victory at the outset. 

• Unless we have reached a very high level of perfection, we cannot instinctively avoid feeling the desire to appear in a good light, to make a good impression, and to please others.
• Our weapon is the correction of our intentions. Righteous intention is attained through constant, daily correction of our intentions. 
• The intention of the will, not an inner feeling, is what makes the difference in God’s eyes.

Þ   Living the Simple Path brings us to an ATTENTIVENESS OF OUR HEARTS so that we can correct the intention of our hearts.

• Notice that all our disordered tendencies flow from impure hearts. 

Þ   Ex: a MOC shared that her tendency is to enter resentment and revenge and act from those emotions when her expectations of people are not met.  

• Correcting her intentions means she: 
• 1^st - must be attentive to her heart and docile to SEE this impurity; 
• 2^nd – enter SILENCE to deny herself - “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23
• –CRUCIFY HER DESIRES -- those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Gal.5:24)

63. The Purification of Your Desires —Diary of a MOC. p.187

The purification of your desires is the first stage of purification in My Sacred Heart. You begin to move only according to My desires and not yours. You no longer do what you want to do, nor go where you want to go; but now, you go only where I take you. You choose to live each day according to what is most difficult, not what is easiest. This will require a greater discipline of your will, greater silence, and stillness of soul in Me. 

• What desires in me need to be crucified? 
• Can be disordered tendencies such as: 
• Desire to separate, 
• Desire to act on resentment,
• Desire to “bite” -- If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. (Gal.5:15)
• Desire for comfort,
• Can be good desires that God has not willed to grant us: Desire for intimacy of heart
• 3^rd – Third step: Repent before Christ – TRANSPARENT/ NAKED – Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Þ   This is INTERIOR WORK that is REAL, and that authentic people do, and because of that it is very pleasing to God. It is what Fr Cantalmessa says in these words: “The intention of the will, not an inner feeling, is what makes the difference in God’s eyes.”

Þ      If hypocrisy consists in making a show of the good that one does not really do, an effective remedy to counter this tendency is to conceal the good that one does, to favor the hidden gestures that will not be spoiled by any earthly gaze and will keep all their fragrance for God.

• St. John of the Cross says, “God is more pleased by one work, however small, done secretly, without desire that it be known, than a thousand done with desire that men know of them.”
• Jesus persistently recommends this practice: “Pray in secret, fast in secret, give alms in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you” (see Mt 6:4-18). Jesus also says, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 5:16). The issue is discerning when it is good for others to see and when it is better that they do not.

39. Martyrdom of the Heart —Diary of a MOC.  p.139

The martyrdom of the heart is the martyrdom of suffering with Love and for Love. My daughter, if you could only understand the fruit of the martyrdom of suffering, you would desire nothing else on earth. The hidden life of suffering with Love and for Love is of far greater worth than great and small works tainted with human recognition. Believe in the hidden force contained in the martyrdom of the heart. This is the purest fragrance of love that has the power to conquer the enemies of God. (11/9/12)

Þ   Our hidden sufferings of heart with Christ MUST be our most important work, our main work, because it IS our most fruitful work and that which is most pleasing to God because of its PURITY of INTENTION!

Þ   Ask yourself:

• Has my hidden life of suffering with Christ and for Christ become my joy?
• Have I come to believe and treasure my interior hidden work? Do I prefer this hidden work above any other exterior work?
• Jesus told us: “Live to please Me in all things.” But do I live to please myself, my good name, my reputation…?
• Am I doing a visible work because it is God’s Will or to make myself important, look good, feel good, admired, wanted, affirmed….? (The work can also be God’s Will but,  Is it tainted with my impure intentions.

Þ   All glory be to God

• Anything we do outside, including any ministry, is because our Lord has “sent us” as He did Moses.
• Exodus 3:10-12 “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”  He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”
• We know the story – God‘s power and mercy brought the Israelite people out of Egypt, not Moses. Moses was simply OBEDIENT to the WILL OF GOD. He was God’s INSIGNIFICANT VESSEL so that ALL GLORY IS GOD’S! – 
• Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit because apart from me, you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

• We are hypocrites when we desire to take the glory; when we think we did it; when we desire to make it about us. In this area, we need a constant daily correction.
• I live authentically who I am when I live knowing that I am nothing and God is ALL. We might believe this in our minds, yet, as Fr Cantalamessa reminds us, we live the lie daily, most of the time subconscious of it, and this is hypocrisy. 
• Like Moses, God has chosen each of us and sent us to make all things new, especially a transformed priesthood. “Who am I?”, “Who are we?” The truth is that we are weak and nothing, like Moses, incapable of making anything new on our own, but only by living in His Will, obedient to all His desires, and not ours, He will make things and people new through us, with us, and in us and all the glory is His!

63. The Purification of your Desires  p.187

You have come to recognize My voice and the promptings of My Divine Spirit. At times God requires immediate obedience; at others, your obedience is lived as you wait upon the Lord. The latter obedience requires greater abandonment and trust, and therefore, is more pleasing to Abba, Our Father. This is a complete dying to moving in your will. (1/16/14)

Þ   The worst thing one can do after hearing or reading a description of hypocrisy is to use it to judge others and to denounce the hypocrisy around us. It is precisely these people to whom Jesus applies the name of hypocrites: “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Mt 7:5).

Þ   Who can say that they are completely immune from this form of hypocrisy? Of being not a bit like a whitewashed tomb, different on the inside from what appears on the outside? Our consolation is that, as soon as one says, “I have been a hypocrite,” one’s hypocrisy is overcome.