Daily Gospel Reflection
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February 11, 2026
Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them,
“Hear me, all of you, and understand.
Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person;
but the things that come out from within are what defile.”
When he got home away from the crowd
his disciples questioned him about the parable.
He said to them,
“Are even you likewise without understanding?
Do you not realize that everything
that goes into a person from outside cannot defile,
since it enters not the heart but the stomach
and passes out into the latrine?”
(Thus he declared all foods clean.)
“But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him.
From within the man, from his heart,
come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within and they defile.”
It happens all the time. I take my blood pressure at home, or I sit down at one of the kiosks that dot grocery stores, and the numbers that are revealed to me are generally in the normal range for someone my age. However, things change for me when I visit my primary doctor twice a year, and the first information collected is my vitals. That dreaded condition that affects me, known as “White Coat Syndrome,” sets in.
Although I am in general good health, at my check-ups, I find my pulse rapidly ascends the moment the nurse slaps the arm cuff around me to take a reading. It feels like all my good health practices are forgotten by my doctor, and I vow, once again, to make changes.
In today’s gospel, the people around Jesus feel pretty good about themselves (like I do on the way into the doctor’s office), but then the great physician, Jesus Christ, pulls no punches. Jesus quickly diagnoses the situation that unclean people are not unclean by the food they eat, but rather from what is exposed to live in their hearts.
Jesus states, “What comes out of people defiles them, for evil designs come out of the heart.” Thankfully for us, Jesus not only offers a cure, Jesus is the cure! So, next time that evil arises in your heart, skip the blame game of how it got there and run to Jesus in the sacraments, especially the sacrament of reconciliation. Your blood pressure, your heart, and your soul will thank you!
Prayer
Loving God, purify our hearts, we beg you. Give us the grace to constantly reflect your loving heart. We know that what is evil comes from within us and what is good is found only in communion with you and your creation. Help us to be chaste, honest, humble, and wise. We ask this in your name, Christ the purifier. Amen.
Saint of the Day
On February 11, 1858, a poor 14-year-old shepherd girl named Bernadette Soubirous was collecting firewood near Lourdes, France. She saw a bright light, and Mary appeared before her in a natural hollow of rock in a cave on the shore of a river.
Mary appeared with a youthful face, and she wore a white garment with a blue belt and carried a rosary. Over the course of 18 appearances, she identified herself as the Immaculate Conception. Mary told Bernadette to drink from a spring within the cave and to tell Church authorities to build a shrine on the site. Since those appearances, more than 200 million pilgrims have visited Lourdes, many reporting cures from the miraculous spring.
Father Sorin visited Lourdes, France, on one of his many trips back to France in the late 1800s to confer with the Holy Cross community. He was moved by the display of faith he saw there and began conversations at Notre Dame to construct a replica shrine on campus.
Notre Dame’s Grotto was constructed in 1896 (after Sorin’s death) and replicates the shrine at Lourdes on a one-seventh scale. A stone from Lourdes is implanted in the Grotto wall. The other boulders were unearthed from nearby farm fields, some weighing two or three tons. Workers, in digging the foundation, opened a spring of water in the same relative position as the miraculous spring that emerged at Lourdes—that spring now flows through the fountain on the left side of the Grotto.
In addition to the Grotto, Our Lady of Lourdes is depicted in a large mural in the Basilica, shown in today's featured image. For additional reflection on Our Lady of Lourdes, read this article written by Catherine Sims Kuiper for Church Life Journal.
Our Lady of Lourdes, who brings healing and hope to your children in France and throughout the world—pray for us!