Mt 23,1-12 – Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent
«The scribes and Pharisees sat on Moses’ chair. Whatever they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their works, because they say and do not do.” In these words of the Gospel of Matthew we find a very clear definition of what makes a teacher unreliable. A bad teacher is not necessarily one who teaches wrong things.
He can even teach right things. The problem arises when his life is in total dissonance with what he proclaims. When words are not confirmed in concrete existence, a short circuit is generated. Inconsistency undermines even the most correct teaching. For this reason, Jesus invites us to distinguish between the content and the testimony: he recognizes the authority of the teaching linked to the “chair of Moses”, but warns against the contradiction between saying and doing. In the following verses, in fact, Jesus also warns against the risk of feeling guaranteed by the role: «Do not call yourselves “rabbi” (…) and do not call any of you on earth “father” (…) and do not call yourselves “masters”».
It is not a formal prohibition, but a substantial reminder: no title can replace the one true Master, the only Father, who is God. True humility consists in always recognizing oneself as relative to Christ. No one is the master of another’s conscience or life. All authority in the Church is service, not possession. When the role becomes a shield behind which to hide one’s inconsistencies, it betrays its very reason for being. A true rabbi, a true father, a true master can be recognized by this: they feel responsible, not protagonists. They know that the greatest service they can render to those entrusted to them is to show with their lives the truth they announce with words.
Christian authority does not arise from the title, but from coherence. It is holiness – that is, the unity between what is believed, said and lived – that makes every teaching credible. Where this unity is missing, even the most correct word loses strength. Where it exists, life itself becomes Gospel.
Tuesday 3 March 2026 – (Tuesday of the 2nd Week of Lent)
