452. Hypocritical charity, however, is characteristic of those who in church or at home bow before God almost touching the paving stones, pour out long devotional prayers, keep solemn faces, kiss crucifixes and the bones of the dead, and then genuflect towards their tombs, muttering over them phrases expressing holy veneration of God, while yet turning over in their hearts the worship of themselves, and addressing to themselves adoration as if to divine powers. These people resemble those whom the Lord describes in these words:
When you give alms, do not have a trumpet sound before you, as hypocrites do in synagogues and in the streets, to get glory from men. And if you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites, who like to pray standing up in synagogues and at street-corners, so that people can see them. Matt. 6:2, 5.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of the heavens in men's sight, since you do not go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who want to go in to do so. Woe to you, hypocrites, because you tour sea and dry land to make one proselyte; and when you have got one, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as yourselves. Woe to you, you hypocrites, because you clean the outside of the cup and dish, but the insides are full of robbery and intemperance. Matt. 23:13, 15, 25.
Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, you hypocrites, saying, This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Mark 7:6.
Woe to you, you hypocrites, because you are like hidden tombs, so that people walking over them are unaware. Luke 11:44.
There are other passages too. These people are like flesh without blood, or like ravens and parrots which have been taught to repeat the words from a psalm; and like birds trained to sing the tune of a religious hymn. The sound of their speech is like the sound of a fowler's lure.
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