MY daily reflection and prayer:
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Dear my friends,
Here is the Gospel for us today according to Matthew 23:27-32
Jesus Christ said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like white washed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, saying, `If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.
This is the Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.
***
THE Gospel today tells us that Jesus Christ warned the scribes and Pharisees not to condemn them but to call them to examine their hearts in the light of God’s truth and holiness. He called them hypocrites because their hearts were set on pleasing themselves rather than God.
Jesus Christ equates true beauty and goodness with a clean heart and mind that is set on God and his way of love and goodness and sin with a corrupt mind and heart that is set on doing what is wrong and evil.
It’s the truth that true beauty and goodness come from within. Our heart reveals the true intentions and attitudes that form the way we think of others and treat them. Every good deed is beautiful in God’s sight.
According to Jesus, what truly corrupts us is the sinful attitudes that come from our within such as pride, greed, sloth, envy, hatred, and lust. All of hese produce sinful habits and ways of speaking, acting, judging, and treating others.
In the Perpetual Adoration of the Eucharist we ask Jesus Christ who will set us free from slavery to sin and harmful habits and addictions that lead us into wrong and sinful ways of thinking, acting, and relating to others. He will purify our hearts and minds.
Let’s pray: Lord Jesus Christ, may from our hearts spring true beauty, goodness, and piety. Purify our hearts and minds and fill us with the power of your love and goodness that we may love your ways and obey your word now and forever.
Kredit foto: Ilustrasi (Ist)
