Gospel: October 14, 2025
October 14, 2025 (Tuesday)
28th Week in Ordinary Time
Psalter: Week 4
(Green/Red)
St. Callistus I, pope and martyr
Ps 19:2-3, 4-5
The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
1st Reading: Romans 1:16-25
Gospel: Luke 11:37-41
As Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to have a meal with him. So he went and sat at table. The Pharisee then wondered why Jesus did not first wash his hands before dinner. But the Lord said to him, “So then, you Pharisees, you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside yourselves you are full of greed and evil. Fools! He who made the outside, also made the inside. But according to you, by the mere giving of alms everything is made clean.
Reflection:
“He who made the outside, also made the inside.”
Christ is challenging a religion that is reduced to externals. We are to be wary of losing sight of the purpose of rituals and external actions, as we might turn them into the goal of our religious practice rather than the means of reaching God. Thomas Merton describes this as turning religious practice into an idol, which he says is more subtle than materialism but is an idol nonetheless, as the practice of religion has turned away from focusing on the subject, namely God, to focusing on an object instead, be that a type of prayer or religious action, and this becomes an end in itself. Thus, Saint Paul’s words in the first reading on idol worship also apply to this religion of externals. In the language of Saint John of the Cross, this is a misuse of religious things, which prevents our goal of ascending to God. The Pharisees stray into this way of thinking, which provokes Christ’s words of challenge and makes the criticism. What about us? Do we lose sight of the goal of our prayer and fall into a ritualistic perfectionism?
