Today, the Lord strikes again the Pharisees and Scribes who pretend to be orthodox to the law and righteous in spirituality. The mode of prayer was much more important than the prayer itself. The ritual was way higher than the spirituality within it.

Jesus reminds them: You cleanse the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside are full of extortion and rapacity. You blind Pharisees, first cleanse the inside of the cup and of the plate, then the outside also may be clean. Journeying towards the end of this summer month, dear friends, isn’t the statement of our Lord to the Pharisees and Scribes valid for us? Sometimes we spend a lot of time on our physical appearance and neglect the interior. Is it not true that our physical appearance sometimes restricts us from participating in the Eucharist, worried about how the public will evaluate us? Do you not relate sometimes to the moment when we are forced to receive communion for the sake of public image, even though we feel we need first the sacrament of reconciliation? This is a social situation that touches our spiritual life.

When St. Peter Julian sought to open the cenacle in Jerusalem, he slowly realized that he was becoming the project and not Christ in the Eucharist. Whenever we have our eyes on the outside, we may be replacing Jesus with ourselves. Psalm 139, in our liturgy today, is a consoling prayer. It reminds us that we are before a God from whom nothing is hidden. He knows our resting and rising. He marks when we walk or lie down and knows us through and through. Let us struggle to be pure before him, as we wish to be before men. Let us struggle and yearn for his presence, for without him we are nothing.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, examine me and know my heart. Question me and know my paths. See if there might be in me the way of iniquity and lead me in the way of eternity. I ask this, through Christ our Lord. Amen. (Psalm 139)