Daily Gospel Reflection
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August 23, 2021
Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men.
You do not enter yourselves,
nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You traverse sea and land to make one convert,
and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna
twice as much as yourselves.
“Woe to you, blind guides, who say,
‘If one swears by the temple, it means nothing,
but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.’
Blind fools, which is greater, the gold,
or the temple that made the gold sacred?
And you say, ‘If one swears by the altar, it means nothing,
but if one swears by the gift on the altar, one is obligated.’
You blind ones, which is greater, the gift,
or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
One who swears by the altar swears by it and all that is upon it;
one who swears by the temple swears by it
and by him who dwells in it;
one who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God
and by him who is seated on it.”
When I was a sophomore in high school, we had a foreign exchange student from South Korea who lived with our family in Colorado for a year to study English. “Do Yoon” was my best friend, and he soaked up the American experience from pop culture to sports. However, I noticed he resisted attending Mass with our family. One day I asked Do Yoon why he didn’t believe in God. He wrinkled his brow at me and answered accusingly, “Why should I believe in God when you clearly don’t?”
His words shook me. Born a cradle Catholic, I had thought that going to weekly Mass made me a Christian, but in the eyes of someone who learned from observing, it was clear to Do Yoon I was Catholic in name only. And he was right. Our actions speak louder than our words, and I had treated being part of the Church as an obligation rather than as a living reality. Like the Pharisees who latched onto the social constructs of the world and elevated status, I too had become complacent rather than owning my faith from the heart.
Do Yoon’s words poured on me like a bucket of ice water, but it still took several years before I could say the faith was my own. The scary part was that I wasn’t even aware of the problem until he pointed it out. We become like the Pharisees when we fail to see our own hypocrisy. We become so blinded by ourselves that we don’t even realize that we have fallen off the path.
Lord, we pray for humility. We pray that we can see clearly and lead from the heart. Save us from our own vanity. Help us be your true disciples so that our thoughts and actions are one with your will.
Prayer
Lord, although you call on our leaders, like you call on all of us, to practice what we preach and believe, never let us use the failings and transgressions of our leaders as an excuse to slack in our own following of your Son, so that in remaining faithful to his teachings, we may follow him home to heaven. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Rose of Lima was given the name Isabel when she was born in Peru in 1586. She was such a beautiful baby, however, that people could not help calling her Rose.
Her beauty grew as she aged, and she became the subject of much admiration. She decided to devote herself fully to Jesus, however, and the admiration became a distraction to her. She feared her beauty would distract others as well, so she would rub crushed pepper on her face to produce rashes and blisters.
Her devotion led her to take on severe mortifications, but she was devoted to those around her with similar intensity. When her parents fell into poverty, she worked to grow food in their garden and took on sewing jobs at night. She dedicated a room in her family’s home to care for orphans and the poor.
She wanted to enter a convent, but her parents would not give her permission because they wanted her to marry. She was obedient to her parents and did not join a convent. She did convince them of her vow of virginity, however—she clung to her single-hearted devotion to Christ and remained at home for her whole life, giving herself to prayer and good works. (She became a third-order Dominican, meaning that she took on the spirituality of the Dominicans as a private lay person.)
She is the patron of the Americas, the Philippines, and of florists. She is depicted, among other places, in a mural and in a window in the Basilica, wearing a crown of roses, and a number of her relics are kept in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.
St. Rose of Lima, your beauty transcended your body as you stubbornly sought holiness—pray for us!
To learn even more about Saint Rose of Lima, watch this video lecture from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.