Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 11, 37-41
While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you.”
Clean up
1) Jesus entered. Jesus lives in everyone. Giving Jesus a place in your life involves questioning your life and your way of thinking and acting. It also involves accepting that we may all fall into the area between the totally rigid and totally relaxed. No extreme is good. Remember what St Augustine taught: we must seek the right balance where virtue dwells, and the key to virtue is not going to extremes. Today Jesus invites you to get to know Him and to reach out to your brothers and sisters from your own experience of being with Him. Get to know Jesus to relieve and console one another, not to judge others.
2) Cleansing on the outside. Be careful not to turn into a ritualistic catholic, one who appears at all the celebrations, goes to mass every day, but it is all a facade. Because ritualistic catholics do not act or celebrate out of love, they do it to look good, to have a certain status or position in the parish or in a group. Do not fall into being a puritan christian either. Puritan christians are those who seem to have been simply ‘brushed’ by original sin, not really touched by it. They are experts at judging others. They look at the sins of others but never at their own. To look good, they might call themselves sinners, though they don’t really consider themselves so at heart.
3) Clean from within. This refers to those who look at themselves through God’s eyes, knowing that God is with them. They are the ones who can remember their sins and see God’s mercy in their life. They do not take credit for their good actions and they entrust everything to God. Cleansing from within is remembering one’s sins, thanking God for His mercy, and doing continuous acts of compassion. It involves being sincere even with small details and being prudent when speaking. It is learning to be silent and above all, praying. One can recognize a people who are clean from within because they are prudent when speaking, constant in prayer and have no interest in positions, nor do they want to meddle in other people’s affairs. People that have achieved this type of cleansing will approach others without judging them, seeking to be with them and not above them. A beautiful aspiration you can pray today is: “Lord I am nothing, but with you, I am everything.”
I invite you to pray the Rosary, especially during the month of October. And never forget Heaven is our goal. God bless you in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
