Tuesday, March 15, 2022 — Second week of Lent — Reject all the crimes you have committed, make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit — Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 23, 1-12

Today's Gospel invites us to reflect on how to exercise authority. This reflection leads us to evaluate the way certain leaders exercise their authority in the Church and in our society. In the time of Jesus, as in our time, some exercise their authority in a control that ends in oppression. Sometimes they claim adoration and ovation, as if they coveted the place of God, the only Sovereign and that of Jesus, the Unique Master par excellence. But the Church wanted by Jesus is a community of brothers and sisters, having the same heavenly Father, instructed and guided by a single Master, Jesus Christ.

Our society needs a hierarchy exercising authority for its proper functioning. But this authority must be exercised in the spirit of service, with humility and deference to brothers and sisters. Moreover, authority also is exercised more with works and testimony than with words.