We often wear masks and what people see is not really what they get. The news and history is replete with stories of people being the exact opposite of whom they try to project they are. There are preachers who are really sexual predators. There are big and wealthy businessmen who are no more than wily scammers. There are great athletes who have attained their stature by using illegal drugs. There are government regulators who are in fact the biggest law-breakers themselves.
I am aghast at the unfolding events in the Philippines. It is very galling to realize that supposedly honorable and upright persons who sit as our august legislators have no qualms whatsoever in raiding and plundering the national treasury. And they have been doing this for years. That is why they would cling to power like insatiable leeches.
Masks are often necessary coping mechanisms for us to be able to function in daily life. To protect our deepest self from hurt or pain, we wear masks. Sometimes, to protect the people we love from hurt and pain, we wear masks. We wear many and different masks, depending on the situation and the people we are with. Masks become reprehensible when they are insidious, when we begin to live a lie and when they turn us into hypocrites.
In prayer and alone with God, I can take off my masks and lay my soul bare before him. Before him, I can shed all pretenses and just simply be myself. For after all, it was Him who made me and everything from Him is good. In prayer, I affirm that goodness in me and that realization makes me strong to face daily life. Then, I might not have to wear my masks too often.
‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.’
Matthew 23:27-32