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 you follow Jesus? Do you follow Him because you are obliged by your faith or you follow Him because of your deep love for Him?
When you follow Jesus because you see it as your obligation; it will not create a
deep transformation within you. You simply follow for the reason that it creates
a positive self-image for you 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
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