Tuesday - October 13, 2020
“To give worthy praise to the Lord's mercy, we unite ourselves with Your Immaculate Mother, for then our hymn will be more pleasing to You, because She is chosen from among men and angels. Through Her, as through a pure crystal, Your mercy was passed on to us. Through Her, man became pleasing to God; Through Her, streams of grace flowed down upon us.”
- St. Faustina
October 13, 2020
Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading 1
GAL 5:1-6
Brothers and sisters:
For freedom Christ set us free;
so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
It is I, Paul, who am telling you
that if you have yourselves circumcised,
Christ will be of no benefit to you.
Once again I declare to every man who has himself circumcised
that he is bound to observe the entire law.
You are separated from Christ,
you who are trying to be justified by law;
you have fallen from grace.
For through the Spirit, by faith, we await the hope of righteousness.
For in Christ Jesus,
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything,
but only faith working through love.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 119:41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48
R. (41a) Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
Let your mercy come to me, O LORD,
your salvation according to your promise.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
Take not the word of truth from my mouth,
for in your ordinances is my hope.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
And I will keep your law continually,
forever and ever.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
And I will walk at liberty,
because I seek your precepts.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
And I will delight in your commands,
which I love.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
And I will lift up my hands to your commands
and meditate on your statutes.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
Alleluia
HEB 4:12
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The word of God is living and effective,
able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
LK 11:37-41
After Jesus had spoken,
a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home.
He entered and reclined at table to eat.
The Pharisee was amazed to see
that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal.
The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees!
Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish,
inside you are filled with plunder and evil.
You fools!
Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside?
But as to what is within, give alms,
and behold, everything will be clean for you.”
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TRUE OBEDIENCE
True obedience to the laws of God is true faith -- not because obedience wins us God's approval and gets us into heaven, but because faith is the presence of Christ within us and he is the fulfillment of the Law.
Today's first reading reminds us that faith expresses itself through love. Since God is love and every law of his is based on love, obedience without love is legalism, i.e., lawfulness without faith. And this, St. Paul says, is an attempt to justify ourselves; it's a fall from grace. Why? Because it separates us from Christ who already justified us through his death on the cross.
In the Gospel reading, Jesus defines the core problem of legalistic obedience: It fails to change us on the inside. The Pharisee's attitude was quite condescending toward Jesus, which reveals that his obedience to the rules and regulations of religious life had not moved his heart with love. He was more concerned about rituals than about people.
Moral laws, Church rules, and ritual norms are good and necessary. They are all based on the Law of Love. Their purpose is to bring us into a stronger, closer relationship with the Author of Love and with the whole Church that embodies this Love. Disobedience is either rebellion against love or ignorance of the loving reasons for obedience, and someone somewhere somehow gets hurt.
However, when we love obedience more than we love people, the law itself becomes our god. To imitate Christ, we must care enough about others to put aside legalism whenever it interferes with their salvation or their basic needs. The Church calls for this in Canon Law!
Please note: Moral laws are unchangeable, because it's always unloving to disobey them. But rules and norms and policies do change as the problems that they address change. If we're afraid that changes and adaptations are disobedience, we have to examine them through the lens of moral law, and if the change is based on love and we still don't approve, we are only understanding them legalistically, not faithfully.
Legalism makes us desperate. Try as we might, we cannot earn our way into heaven through obedience, because we will never be perfect enough. In trying to make ourselves right with God, we become more rigid, we distrust changes in the Church, and we're unable to see where and how the Church does allow for adaptations.
Faith means obeying even before we understand why we should obey, always asking the Holy Spirit to give us understanding. To fulfill the law faithfully, we must keep our eyes on Jesus, for he showed us by his example how to be truly obedient.
Today's Prayer
May Your Holy Spirit open my spiritual eyes to see what is really important for my life and the life of my neighbors. Amen.
God Bless You.....
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