“Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them… as the hypocrites do.”
Our Lord, who never wastes a word, chooses one of the most theatrical words in the language: hypocrites. The original sense meant an actor — one who wears a mask, who performs a role, who receives applause for pretending.
And Christ, in the most paradoxical of seasons, commands us to cover our foreheads in ashes while hiding our virtue.
Give alms secretly. Pray in the inner room. Fast without looking miserable.
It is as though He is saying: “If you must perform, perform for the One who sees in secret.”
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.”
The Lord of all asks for mercy, not sacrifice… Let us then show him mercy in the persons of the poor and those who today are lying on the ground, so that when we come to leave this world they may receive us into everlasting dwelling places.” [130]
As I reflect on hope — the Centennial pillar for February, do I dare to ask myself:
If the Lord of all asks for mercy and not sacrifice, am I still among the hypocrites who offer visible religious gestures while withholding mercy from the poor from our “serious mistake” — or will I let hope convert me into someone whose compassion prepares an everlasting dwelling, not just an impressive performance?
2. Meditatio
Yesterday’s wind toppled the straw shelter I built for my three pigs. It lay there in pathetic fragments — a parable strewn across the pasture.
And somehow I reached the uncomfortable conclusion that I am among the hypocrites.
Not because I see the straw of my own Lent scattered about — I am remarkably skilled at overlooking that — but because I see so clearly the straw in everyone else’s construction.
I can detect another man’s flimsy spirituality at fifty paces. I can diagnose performative piety with clinical precision. I can spot a Lent built for applause rather than for shelter.
But the house of my own soul? That I inspect only casually, and usually in dim light.
This is how I feed my vices: I criticize externally to avoid conversion internally. I warn others of storms while ignoring the cracks in my own roof. I preach about shelter while neglecting foundation.
The hypocrite is not merely a liar. He is a man who convinces himself that his performance is structure. He mistakes visibility for virtue.
And Lent is not for the sturdy. It is for the straw-built.
Ash Wednesday exposes what the wind reveals: what is for show collapses under pressure. What is rooted in secret endures.
The pigs, I notice, were entirely unimpressed by the spectacle. They simply required shelter. So too my soul.
3. Contemplatio — Chestertonian Synthesis
Chesterton once remarked that angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. hypocrites, on the other hand, cannot fly because they take themselves too seriously.
The astonishing thing about Christ’s warning is not that He condemns hypocrisy — it is that He presumes we are tempted to it precisely when we attempt righteousness.
Prayer can become theater. Fasting can become advertisement. Almsgiving can become self-congratulation.
And yet ashes are the antidote. Ashes are profoundly untheatrical. They declare not, “Behold my virtue,” but “Behold my dust.”
To be a hypocrite is to love the mask. To be penitent is to remove it.
The inner room Christ speaks of is not merely a location; it is a demolition site. It is where I stop narrating my virtue and start confessing my need.
The straw house falls. The brick house begins in secret.
4. Oratio – Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Strip me of the need to be seen. Guard me from performing holiness. Expose the straw in my soul before the storm does.
Let my almsgiving be quiet. Let my prayer be hidden. Let my fasting be known only to You.
And when I am tempted to inspect another’s house, turn my eyes inward — to foundation, not facade.
Make this Lent not a performance, but a rebuilding.
Amen.
5. Actio — Synodality and Laudato Si’
This is the way human beings contrive to feed their self-destructive vices: trying not to see them, trying not to acknowledge them, delaying the important decisions and pretending that nothing will happen.
True Synodality is not shouting correction across the Church. It is quietly repairing one’s own roof so the house may stand.
6. Song Pairing 🎵
🎶 “You’re So Vain” — Carly Simon🎵
The great danger of Lent is thinking it’s about someone else. Hypocrisy begins when I imagine the ashes belong on another forehead.
7. Movie Pairing 🎬
🎬Movie:Dirty Dancing (1987)
“Stay in your corner.” Lent is less about calling others out of theirs and more about stepping honestly into my own — where the real work begins.
Joshua Correa has returned to the field just in time for Lent, and he has done the most scandalous thing imaginable in an age addicted to abstractions: he has begun with the Incarnation. If you are looking for spiritual arms for the battle, you could do worse than to begin where heaven began—with a humble “yes” in Nazareth. Listen in. Reflect. And let this Lent be less about proving your strength and more about trusting His presence. For the battle is real. But so is Emmanuel.
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.
