26/08/2026
📅 August 25 is the 237th day of the year (238th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 128 days remain until the end of the year.
📖 Gospel Reading:
Matthew 23:23-26
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cu**in, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.
Reflection:
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus forcefully calls the Pharisees (and us) to change their hearts and behavior.
St. Augustine defines sin as incurvatus in se—that means “caved in around oneself.” To be in sin is to be “caved in” around the ego and its narrow concerns. When the Lord says, “Reform your life,” he means move from that old mind and make him the center of your life.
We must know and feel in our bones what is wrong in us; we must look it in the face and acknowledge it with uncompromising honesty. Without this journey into our own inner hell, we will not feel the compunction to shift our way of being and seeing. And we must awaken to what is godlike in us, what is rich and unbroken, what is united with the saving designs of God. Without this clear sense, we will fall into complacency and see metanoia as, at best, a cruel illusion.
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Source: Wikipedia, Word On Fire
