Daily Gospel Reflection for August 23, 2022

Join us as we reflect, ponder, and pray together inspired by today's Gospel.

Every time Jesus has an encounter with the Pharisees, I cringe a little. I admit to a little bit of secondhand embarrassment because there are going to be strong words and hard truths spoken in those encounters.

More often than not, I will see myself in the Pharisees. Like them, I frequently find myself focusing on details. Morning and evening devotionals, started as a way to grow in relationship with the Lord, sometimes morph into items to check off a to-do list. I focus more on accomplishing a prayer recited by rote than actually being present to the Lord.

Christ’s ongoing encounters with the Pharisees, pointing out their hypocrisy and denouncing their blindness to the “weightier things of the law: justice and mercy and fidelity,” speak to me in the present.

It is not lost on me that scripture records so many encounters with the Pharisees. My secondhand embarrassment quickly turns into conviction, and I am so grateful that we have scripture, the Living Word, present to each of us across time, outside of time, and most importantly, right on time.

Ponder:

Do you find yourself sometimes too focused on the letter of the law to see the greater Spirit of the law?

Pray:

Dear Lord, I love You and praise You. I want to do what is pleasing to You. Help me to do what is truly pleasing to You, not what I think is pleasing to You.