A Jesuit Catholic University
in Omaha, Nebraska, since 1878

[468] Galatians 5:1-6 Psalm 119:41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48 Luke 11:37-41

Weekly Guide for Daily Prayer The Daily Reflections

My high school had a volunteer requirement for graduation: seniors must have completed 10 hours of community service in order to get their cap and gown. While many students took this to heart and truly wanted to give back to their community, many students only volunteered because they had to and complained constantly to administration. To the unbeknownst eye, these teenagers looked like honorable citizens who were giving back because they had a pure heart, when really they were just putting on an act because they had to. Is there a difference between the volunteer who volunteers because they have good intentions and the volunteer who puts on a good act but truly doesn’t want to be there?

Sometimes it’s easier to only put on the mask of a perfect Christian. I will admit that I have had days in the past where I’ve tried to act like a better person than I am. But why do I do that? Other people may be affected by this external show, but Jesus knows my heart. Nevertheless, it’s easy to go through the motions of being an upstanding, clean-living, respectable citizen. Some believe that if they are externally good, then they must be good Christians internally - that somehow if you act clean on the outside, it will erase the sins on your inside. This is just like the Pharisees in the gospel today. The Pharisee thought that because he went through the ritual of cleansing, then he must be seen as good on the inside too. But Jesus called him out! He said that even though the Pharisees clean their outsides, their insides are filled with evil! This separation between inside and outside is further seen in the circumcision example in the reading. Paul says that it doesn’t matter if you are or aren’t circumcised – that’s just something external! What does matter is a faith working through love. Once again, Jesus is trying to tell us that what is external is not as important as what is internal. We need to focus on cleansing our insides because no amount of external cleanliness will produce a genuine internal goodness.

Today we are called to realize that it’s not okay to only act like a good Christian - we need to have a pure heart and wholesome mind that matches our external cleanliness. We need to focus less on the external person or on what a person does because these are all superficial. Instead, we need to allow Jesus into our hearts and allow Him to make us truly clean from the inside out.