Mistake
The etymology of the term "erring" is to wander aimlessly without achieving the desired objective. More precisely, it means moving away, deliberately or not, from the truth, from the correct procedure that can allow someone to achieve a goal. Erring means that while we are heading in the right direction towards what we want to achieve, a blunder, an oversight, an error can create a distraction and lead us astray, away from our goal.
If, to reach a peak standing in front of us, we proceed to the valley which lies on the other side, we are making, consciously or not, an error; we are wandering and sooner or later that will take us away from our path and the goal. In this case, there is no way to correct our mistake but to change our mind and make the tactical decision to reverse the direction of our journey toward the opposite direction. This is the evangelical metànoia. If, instead, to reach a goal, we are proceeding in the right direction, but along the way, we fall or take a wrong turning and get confused about our objective, we are simply making a mistake. In this case the procedure is correct, the first assumptions behind our choice are right, and we only need to keep our eyes open so as to avoid blunders, to find our way back to the right path and to continue safely towards our goal. We may need to retrace our steps a thousand times, we may slip, fall, take the wrong turning a thousand times. We may have to pick ourselves up and retrace our steps to get back to the right path over and over again; we will have to persevere and to endure, but the path is the right one, and we will certainly achieve our goal.
Erring means being off the right path permanently. Making a mistake is a momentary, transient condition, the result of failing to perceive correctly some aspects of reality and of present circumstances. The terrible woe to you uttered by Jesus is not addressed to those who make mistakes, but to those who live in error, who are completely out of it with respect to life and God. Woe to you is addressed to those persons who are completely and deliberately off the path which leads to life; it is addressed to those who are in error because they deny the three pillars of life that allow human beings to be happy and full of all goodness: justice, mercy, fidelity. Justice is the fair and impartial distribution of life and the world's wonderful resources to be utilized for the real and true well-being of all men, of the whole man and for Mother Nature. Mercy is the ability to love without possessing; this ability prevents anger, resentment and condemnation from overcoming compassion, understanding and forgiveness. Fidelity is faithfulness to God, to His love, to His procedures, to His divine and intimate predilection for us. Jesus' woe to you is for those persons who are terribly in error with respect to the pursuit of happiness and good, although they are efficaciously achieving their own goals and objectives. It is a fatal to consider, think, believe that the injustice that rules supreme, that war which slaughters and eradicates humanity, that the starvation of millions of people are the results of mistakes, chance, accidental combinations. It is a fatal bias to consider that the gap between a few incalculably rich and the great majority of poor people, that the bloody conflicts among peoples are the result of social tensions and political blunders, of unfortunate coincidences. It is incredibly stupid to think that global pollution, artificial food and lab-made medical care, the exploitation of the land, nature and resources, the overbuilding and carelessness of the infrastructures are the results of an underdeveloped, naive system waiting to be radically transformed. It is stupidity which generates the belief that unattainable deprivation and misery in which peoples have been forced for thousands of years are part of an inscrutable divine destiny, unpredictable and unchangeable fate, rather than punctual, because planned, processes depending on precise choices and calculations, on perfectly organized projects, according to the greed and cunning of the powerful of the earth.
Jesus' woe to you is shouted to the political, economic and religious leaders who are in error and deliberately work against humanity, following a precise choice, a specific project, a predetermined plan which determines a sequence of well defined and calculated actions. Jesus' woe to you is shouted to those who it is impossible to say they did not know what they were doing; they always know exactly what they are doing. Jesus cries out His woe to you to the powerful, who so ruthlessly use the law, morals, religions, institutions as a way to strangle people, to empty humanity of self-confidence and true faith in God. When people no longer have faith in anything, they are so frightened that they are ready to believe anything. In fact, they need to believe that those who are ruling them are not cheating them, cannot be deliberately destroying and taking away their last drop of blood.
Jesus shouts His woe to you loudly to those who hold political, economic and religious power and He hopes that the echo of His cry will also reach the people who will realize that rulers of the world have never had and will never ever have the slightest real interest in favoirng the true happiness and true well-being of mankind. Jesus' woe to you is shouted out loudly to the powerful of the world, who are so hungry that they trample on the people's interests, and are so vain as to do so while wearing the dress of hypocrisy and clothing themselves with respectability, virtue, legality and honorability. Jesus says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Jesus' woe to you is addressed all those who present themselves as guides and leaders whom Jesus calls blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!. This does not depend on a lack of intellectual or spiritual ability, but rather on a precise choice, rooted in greed, and the aim to have and to maintain power and dominion by keeping humanity chained in slavery and to use the gift of life only to corrupt life itself.