Our Lord, who never abolishes but always fulfills, dares to tell me that unless my righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, I shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Not matches. Not rivals. Surpasses.
And yet this surpassing is not an athletic feat of moral gymnastics. It is not a matter of jumping slightly higher than the next pious man. It is the sort of surpassing that occurs when a candle flame is outshone by the sun—not because the candle tried harder, but because something infinitely greater rose behind it.
The law is not lowered; it is deepened. Murder becomes anger. Adultery becomes lust. Oaths become simple truth. The battlefield moves from the street into the heart.
Each day, I read a paragraph from the encyclical Dilexi te and weave a quotation from it into that day’s Lectio Divina.
Memorial in the Grotto of St. Mary’s Cathedral. The inscription says: “In memory of the death of innocence of the victims of clergy sexual abuse. When innocence dies…a life stops. It is essential that we never forget.”
Consequently, almsgiving remains, for the time being, a necessary means of contact, encounter and empathy with those less fortunate.
Question to myself (Hope – Centennial Pillar for February):
As we stand in **Hope—the Centennial pillar for February—**do I allow my righteousness to surpass mere sentiment and actually move me to almsgiving as a real encounter, so that my hope becomes flesh in contact, empathy, and shared humanity with those less fortunate due to our “serious mistake“?
For much of the past two decades I have acted as if my righteousness surpasses that of Bishop Zurek.
It is a peculiar sin: the sin of being right in the wrong way. I convinced myself that because I believed something strongly, because I spoke forcefully, because I felt indignant, I must therefore be righteous. And if I was righteous, then surely I surpassed the one who sat in the bishop’s chair.
But Christ does not say, “Unless your indignation surpasses…” He says, “Unless your righteousness surpasses…”
And righteousness, I am beginning to suspect, does not consist in winning arguments but in losing pride.
Now, at the time of his retirement, I find myself recalling something deeply inconvenient: Bishop Zurek has much he could hold against me. My public words. My tone. My presumption that I saw more clearly than he.
Self-righteousness is the most comfortable throne in the world, because it is upholstered with one’s own certainty. And yet it is the one throne Christ most delights in overturning.
Of the five bishops under whom I have lived, it is Bishop Zurek who has formed me the most—not by flattering me, nor by agreeing with me, but by resisting me. Iron sharpens iron, and occasionally sparks fly.
There will be a vacuum in my life when he is gone. I pray that vacuum is not filled with nostalgia for my own crusades. I pray it is filled with the only righteousness that truly surpasses—the righteousness of reconciliation.
3. Contemplatio (Chestertonian Synthesis)
The scribes and Pharisees had righteousness that could be measured. It was visible, countable, defensible.
Christ proposes something infinitely more alarming: righteousness that exceeds calculation.
To surpass the Pharisee is not to out-Pharisee him. It is to out-love him.
True righteousness surpasses when it stoops. It surpasses when it apologizes. It surpasses when it leaves its gift at the altar and walks across the room to say, “Brother, forgive me.”
The righteousness that surpasses is not the righteousness that towers; it is the righteousness that kneels.
If I wish to enter the Kingdom, I must cease trying to surpass my bishop and instead allow Christ to surpass me.
4. Oratio
Lord Jesus, You who fulfill the Law and search the heart, forgive me for mistaking indignation for holiness and certainty for charity.
If I have spoken in anger, heal what I have wounded. If I have presumed superiority, teach me humility.
Let my righteousness surpass not in accusation, but in reconciliation.
Fill the coming vacuum in my life not with resentment or nostalgia, but with Your Spirit. Amen.
5. Actio — Action (Laudato Si’ & Synodality)
It is in the Eucharist that all that has been created finds its greatest exaltation. Grace, which tends to manifest itself tangibly, found unsurpassable expression when God himself became man and gave himself as food for his creatures.
Today I will act in a way that unites justice with peace. If I have criticism, I will express it without contempt. If I have grievance, I will seek reconciliation. If I have influence, I will use it to build communion rather than fracture it.
To surpass is to serve.
6. Song Pairing 🎵
🎶 “Gotta Serve Somebody” – Bob Dylan🎵
You may call it righteousness, you may call it rebellion—but in the end, you’re going to serve somebody. The question is not whether my righteousness surpasses another man’s, but whether it bows to Christ.
7. Movie Pairing 🎬
🎬Movie:The Princess Bride (1987)
At the end of the film, after finally killing Count Rugen, Inigo Montoya confesses: “I have been in the revenge business so long. Now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.” If my crusade has been my identity, what happens when the crusade ends? I do not want to become a pirate of perpetual grievance. I hope instead to become a paradoxical pastoralist like Abraham—walking forward not fueled by revenge, but guided by promise.
There is something wonderfully Catholic about meeting an old friend again and discovering he has become something new. The latest episode of CAPN – The WTC: The Podcast does just that. Ruben returns — but now as St. Ann’s Canyon youth director — and though he is young in years, his counsel for Lent is bracingly ancient. Fasting, prayer, sacrifice, intention. No gimmicks. No glitter. Just the sturdy timber of tradition. It is a delightful paradox: the young reminding the old how to walk the old road well. He also speaks plainly about why the CAPN Podcast Network matters for our Diocese — because evangelization today must travel where people are listening. If the Gospel once rode Roman roads, today it rides podcasts. Give it a listen. Whether you are young, seasoned (like me), or somewhere between — you may find Lent calling you deeper than you expected.
My Story
Photo used by permission of Douglas Kirkland/Corbis via Getty Images
Memorial in the Grotto of St. Mary’s Cathedral. The inscription says: “In memory of the death of innocence of the victims of clergy sexual abuse. When innocence dies…a life stops. It is essential that we never forget.“
I was one of “the few” Bishop Zurek spoke of in this letter. He first posted it in August of 2019, and in response to my, “calling out all the more“, he kept reposting it atop the diocesan news page until December 11, 2019. There it remains to this day.
Fr. Ed Graff, brought here from Philadelphia by Bishop Matthiesen, was arrested in 2002 for sexually assaulting a minor and died later that year in jail. Despite the harm linked to his ministry, he was buried in an honored section of Llano Cemetery among our pioneering clergy — a decision that continues to wound survivors and raise hard questions for our diocese.
Bishop Matthiesen, who rode the white horse of public activism even as he brought abusive priests into our diocese such as John Salazar—wounds that still mark us today. I spoke with him often, pleading with him to reconsider his “no regrets” about bringing those priests here…
Bishop Zurek, who told the Diocese of Amarillo he had “no facts” about the Philadelphia report even as Amarillo’s connection to that tragedy was headline news. When I continued to speak out, as Bishop Yanta had once urged me to do, he later wrote that I was not among the faithful and loyal disciples whom the Lord Jesus desires.
