Today’s Reflection
Gospel: Mt 15:1-2, 10-14
August 2, 2022 |Tuesday

Today’s Gospel

Then, some Pharisees, and teachers of the law, who had come from Jerusalem, gathered around Jesus. And they said to him, “Why don’t your disciples follow the tradition of the elders? For they, they don’t wash their hands before eating.” Jesus then called the people to him, and said to them, “Listen and understand: What enters into the mouth does not make a person unclean. What defiles a person is what comes out of his mouth.” After a while the disciples gathered around Jesus and said, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended by what you said?” Jesus answered, “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be uprooted. Pay no attention to them! They are blind, leading the blind. When a blind person leads another, the two will fall into a pit.”

Today’s Reflection:

The Jews, especially the Pharisees and the Scribes believed that external impurity also makes the internal impure so that they were so particular about external cleanliness or their rituals of purity as to the Tradition of their Elders. Thus, they accused the disciples of Jesus of not doing the ritual of washing their hands before eating which was also an indirect accusation to Jesus. But, Jesus was teaching them the true spirit of the Law by correcting their emphasis on the letter of the Law. He taught them that what makes a person impure is not coming from the outside but from the inside. It is indeed the innermost being of the person which is the heart where impurities come from inasmuch as it is the seat of the good and evil that makes the person holy and unholy. /Vulnerasti, 2022