Reflection for Tuesday August 26, Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time; Matthew 23:23-26

Gospel: Matthew 23:23-26

Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. But these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!

“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. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.”

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Reflection:

Why do we follow Jesus? Do we follow Him because we are obliged by our faith or we follow Him because of our deep love for Him? When we follow Jesus because we see it as our obligation; it does not create a deep transformation within us. We simply follow for the reason that it creates a positive self-image for us and it ends with the positive self-image: No interior cleansing and transformation.

When we follow Jesus because we love Him, we allow the love of Jesus to deeply transform us. For example if we follow Jesus because we love Him, we will be forgiving, we will not store hatred in our hearts. And we will abhor anything that is bad and evil because we give Jesus the freehand to transform us.

Our discipleship with Jesus must always be rooted in our love for Him and not because this is dictated by our faith. For this is what true discipleship is all about, a discipleship that creates a very deep transformation within our being.

Let us therefore examine ourselves and reflect for we may be only following Jesus because we are obliged by our faith or even by our position in the church and community. If this is so it’s about time that we allow Jesus to interiorly renew us. 

This would only commence when we forgive those who’ve hurt us. When we are willing to build bridges than walls and when we humble ourselves before those whom we've hurt by asking for their forgiveness. - Marino J. Dasmarinas