Daily Gospel Reflection
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August 26, 2019
Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred?
“And you say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.’ How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
“So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.”
Jesus challenges the Pharisees’ hypocrisy today, and I can’t help but feel him challenging my own hypocrisy, too.
As a father, I often see my own disordered or sinful behaviors reflected back in my children, from acts as small as biting my nails to ones as big as an angry overreaction or being too hard on myself when I fall short of expectations. I often try to help my young daughters avoid these behaviors, but if I expect them to be healed and freed from these, then I should lead by example, accepting the freedom from these sins that Jesus offers.
But how hard it is to have faith in Jesus’ promise—to believe that he can be strong where I am weak and that he loves me and wills my good! So, for anyone like me who struggles to trust, love and live completely for the God who wills our good, join me today in asking Jesus for the grace to love him more deeply. In loving God, we may strive for the kingdom of heaven and bring others with us, instead of locking them out as the Pharisees did. Let us turn over to God the areas of hypocrisy in our lives and let Jesus heal them.
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
Our Lady of Czestochowa is an image of Mary located in Poland. The icon is also known as the Black Madonna because the image has darkened from the soot of so many votive candles burning near it. Czestochowa is one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Poland—many people visit the shrine to venerate Mary in this icon.
Tradition holds that the icon was painted by St. Luke upon wood that had been part of the table in the home of the Holy Family. It is said that the image was kept in royal palaces in Constantinople and Ukraine after St. Helen found it in Jerusalem. It came to Czestochowa in 1382 by way of a nobleman who was escaping an attack in Ukraine—he stopped to rest in the town and entrusted it to a monastery there.
In 1430, robbers looted the monastery and stole the image. In trying to remove precious stones from the icon, they smashed the wood and made slashes in the paint. When the icon was restored, the artists retained the slashes that were made on Mary’s face.
In the image, Mary’s hand points to Jesus, as she did with her whole life. Jesus holds a book of the Gospels in one hand and extends the other to the viewer in a blessing.
The image is associated with a miracle that marked a turning point in a war between Poland and Sweden in 1655. Monks and other people in the monastery were severely outnumbered by the invading Swedish forces but managed to repel the attackers with the miraculous intervention of Mary.
The image also played a large role in the devotional life of the young St. Maximilian Kolbe; he experienced a moment of conversion as a boy when he was praying in front of this image, and the experience shaped the rest of his life.
A replica of the Our Lady of Czestochowa image stands in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and it faithfully reproduces even the slash marks on Mary’s face. The image was a gift to Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C., founder of Notre Dame, from the Polish Carmelite Sisters in the Shrine of St. Bridget in Rome. The sisters gave it to Father Sorin, who was superior general of the Congregation of Holy Cross at the time, “as a sign of perpetual friendship.”
Our Lady of Czestochowa, you are captured in the miraculous image of Mary venerated by Polish people—pray for us!
Personalize and share a prayer card with this image of Our Lady of Czestochowa at our prayer card page.