＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊   

Romans 1:16-25

For I am not ashamed

At all of this Good News; it is God’s power saving those who believe, first the Jews, and then the Greeks.   This Good News shows us the saving justice of God; a justice that saves exclusively by faith, as the Scripture says: The upright one shall live by faith.

 

For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those who have silenced the truth by their wicked ways.  For everything that could have been known about God was clear to them: God himself made it plain.  

Because his invisible attributes—his everlasting power and divinity—are made visible to reason by means of his works since the creation of the world. So they have no excuse,   for they knew God and did not glorify him as was fitting, nor did they give thanks to him. On the contrary, they lost themselves in their reasoning and darkness filled their minds.

 Believing themselves wise, they became foolish:  they exchanged the Glory of the immortal God for the likes of mortal human beings, birds, animals and reptiles. Because of this God gave them up to their inner cravings; they did shame­ful things and dishonored their bodies.

 They exchanged God’s truth for a lie; they honored and worshiped created things instead of the Creator, to whom be praise for ever, Amen!

 

Ps 19:2-3, 4-5

The heavens proclaim the glory of God.

 

＊＊＊＊ 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.

 

 Gospel Reflection：

The Pharisees are not actually bad people. They too want to serve God in the best way that they can. But in the process, they are careful about all that man could see of their lives and careless about that which only God could see.

And so, they do all the right things on the outside and took great pains to do so, yet they never work on what is important, their hearts. In this gospel, such pharisaical mindset is full display.

A Pharisee invites Jesus to his house and is aghast that Jesus does not observe the required niceties such as the washing of hands before eating. For sure this is itself not bad. It is actually practical by assuring hygiene before eating.

But there is something much deeper than the mere concern for proper hygiene. It is a mindset that takes much energy to assure outward cleanliness to the detriment of inner purification.

And so Jesus redirects the preoccupation of the host Pharisee to that which is more essential. These are things that are invisible to the naked eye but not from God’s eyes.