Matthew 15:14

Let them alone. It must not be hence inferred, that he desired not the conversion of the Scribes and Pharisees. He only says: if, through their own perversity, they choose to take scandal, let them do it; we must not neglect to teach the truth, though it displease men. (St. Jerome) --- When, says St. Gregory, we see scandal arise from our preaching truth, we must rather suffer it to take place than desert the truth. Our Lord says they are blind, let us leave them. For the land which has often been watered with the dews of heaven, and still continues barren is deserted. Behold your house shall be left desolate. (Luke xiii. 35) And Isaias (v. 6.) says, It shall not be pruned, and it shall not be digged, but briers and thorns shall come upon it; and I will command the clouds to rain no more rain upon it. For, although God never refuses man grace sufficient to enable him to rise, if he pleases, yet he sometimes denies such assistance as would render his rise easy. The state of a sinner is then desperate indeed, when Christ tells his disciples to leave him. For as the Sodomites were destroyed, so soon as Lot, who was just and good in the sight of God, had departed from them, and as Jerusalem was laid waste when Jesus went out of it, (for he suffered without the gates) so the sinner is in a very dangerous state, when he is left by the ministers of religion as one infected with a mortal distemper. (Paulus de Palacio)