In the Gospel of Matthew (Mat 12:1-8), Jesus is rebuked for violating the Sabbath. This reminded me of the video below, which illustrates how we sometimes follow smaller rules while overlooking more important ones in the process.
The Lord Jesus was often scorned by the people of His day, who claimed that He overlooked certain details of the law (often Sabbath observances). But those who rebuked Him for this were guilty of far greater violations. For example,
- [Jesus] went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.” Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus (Mk 3:1-6).
- Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone (Luke 11:42).
- Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” (Lk 13:14-16)
- You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean (Matt 23:24-25).
Yes, they are straining out gnats but swallowing camels, maximizing the minimum but minimizing the maximum. Note that in the first passage above they are actually planning to kill Jesus for healing on the Sabbath!
Perhaps my all-time favorite illustration of this awful human tendency is in the Gospel of John:
Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out … (John 18:28-29).
They are plotting to kill a just and innocent man; indeed, they are plotting to kill God. They are acting out of wickedness, envy, jealousy, hatred, and murderous anger, but their primary concern is avoiding ritual uncleanliness! Yes, they are straining out gnats but swallowing camels.
We who are pious and observant need to be wary of this tendency. Sometimes in congratulating ourselves over adherence in lesser matters, we can either offend or neglect in weightier ones. Perhaps I attend Mass each Sunday (a grave obligation); perhaps I pray the rosary (a highly commendable practice); perhaps I tithe (a commendable precept). These are all things that ought to be done (one is commanded, one is commended, and one is a precept). But what if at the same time I am hateful toward someone at the office, unforgiving to a family member, and/or insensitive to the poor?
The danger could be that I let my observance of certain things allow me to think that I can “check off the God box” and figure that because I went to Mass, prayed the rosary, and gave an offering, I’ve “got this righteousness thing down.” Too often, very significant and serious things like love, mercy, forgiveness, and charity are set aside or neglected as I am busy congratulating myself over my adherence to other, sometimes lesser, things.
This oversight can happen in the other direction as well. Someone may congratulate himself for spending the day working in a soup kitchen, and think that he therefore has no need to look at the fact that he is living unchastely (shacked up, for example) or not attending Mass.
We cannot “buy God off,” doing certain things (usually things that we like) while ignoring others we’d rather not. In the end, the whole counsel of God is important.
We must avoid the sinful tendency to try to substitute or swap, to observe a few things while overlooking others.
We see a lot of examples of this in our culture as well. We obsess over people smoking because it might be bad for their health while ignoring the health consequences of promiscuous behavior, which spreads AIDS and countless venereal diseases and leads to abortion. We campaign to save the baby seals while over a thousand baby humans are killed each day in the United States. We deplore (rightfully) the death of thousands each year in gun homicides while calling the murder of hundreds of thousands of babies each year a constitutional right. The school nurse is required to obtain parental permission to dispense aspirin to students but not to provide the dangerous abortifacient “morning after pill.” We talk about the dignity of women and yet pornography flourishes. We fret endlessly about our weight and the physical appearance of our bodies, which will die, and care little for our souls, which will live. We obsess over carbon footprints while flying on jets to global warming conferences at luxurious convention center complexes.
Yes, we are straining gnats but swallowing camels. As the Lord says, we ought not to neglect smaller things wholly, but simply observing lesser things doesn’t give us the right to ignore greater ones.
Salus animarum suprema lex. (The salvation of souls is the highest law.) While little things mean a lot, we must always remember not to allow them to eclipse greater things.
The ideal for which to aim is an integrated state in which the lesser serves the greater and is subsumed into it. St. Augustine rightly observed,
Quod Minimum, minimum est, Sed in minimo fidelem esse, magnum est (St. Augustine – De Doctrina Christiana, IV,35).
(What is a little thing, is (just) a little thing, but to be faithful in a little thing is a great thing.)
Notice that the lesser things are in service of the greater thing—in this case fidelity. And thus we should rightly ask whether some of the lesser things we do are really in service of the greater things like justice, love, mercy, fidelity, kindness, and generosity. Otherwise we run the risk of straining out gnats but swallowing camels.
Enjoy this commercial, which illustrates how one rule (no loud voices in the library) is observed while violating nearly every other.
Cross-posted at the Catholic Standard: Straining Out Gnats but Swallowing Camels
Wow, Msgr. You SEEM to be saying going to Mass and praying are in the lesser category. It seems to me we are forgetting the transadence and the almighty powers of God to give us the graces to love all as we love ourselves. That is where we receive the graces we need in order to do the will of God. If I were a non catholic reading this blog I would say…. See even catholic priests believe as we do?
Rudy…The Monsignor calls Mass attendance “a grave obligation”. That doesn’t sound like he’s dismissing its importance.
What I believe he is trying to say is: “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you.'”
Too many Catholics “check boxes” and run a tally of their “good” works, like it’s a cosmic Bingo Card. If it is done “pro forma”, rather than with Love, many of us may be in for a rude awakening.
Rudy, faith is gift we can’t earn but one that we can ( and must) ask for. Doesn’t matter which direction we move. Grace filled environment where we don’t cooperate with the grace but console ourselves by fulfilling an obligation or a grace impoverished environment where we console ourselves with fulfilling another obligation.
There is a hierarchy between the Mass and ministering to the poorest where the works of mercy, in the economy of salvation, are subordinate to the Mass. That doesn’t mean that one without the other is sufficient for our salvation.
Yes, we receive grace from the Mass to, in part, perform the works of mercy. But there were people that spoke with and stood next to Christ Himself that received absolutely nothing from Him.
Rudy, the number one reason to do anything should be to save souls from losing out on God’s love. How that spells out at any given time and place is another topic. Yes, truth can be twisted, misconstrued and forgotten but it always remains.
To Chardin and Linda,
Thank you for your comments. I agree with you both, but again we as Catholics, including many Bishops and priest don’t really believe the graces that we do receive from the sacraments including and especially the Mass, in order for us to live the gifts offered to us by the Holy Spirit; not only offered, but which also strengthens us especially through prayer. A book I would like to recommend is TheSoul of the Apostolate by Jean-Batiste Chard. Maybe you will understand what I am trying to get across.
From the examples you give it seems there was a lack of the Love that God fills us with, and there was no compassion for the man with a shriveled hand, no wonder Jesus was angry. This reminds me of 1 Corinthians 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing.
This article reminds me of the entire Governor Northam problem. On one day, he openly calls for the murder of innocent newoborns after their parents have a “discussion” with their doctor about whether they are worthy of life, and the next is accused of being in a racist photo. Not necessarily of being a racist, mind you, just being “present” in a picture.
Both are ugly. But one is worse, so so much worse.
Our media and politicians in their “wisdom”, lose their collective mind over the photo, which cannot currently be absolutely tied to the governor (even he seems to not know). But the fact that children who have survived birth are now to be seen as objects to be accepted or rejected on parental whim has entirely escaped the liberal morality.
Straining out gnats and swallowing camels…