Reflections on Scripture | Friday of the 20th Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel
Matthew 22:34-40

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
they gathered together, and one of them,
a scholar of the law, tested him by asking,
"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"
He said to him,
"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

Reflection

When Jesus spoke to his disciples about the Pharisees, it’s clear to say that they are good teachers. They they know the truth. But the problem is they do not live it. And so this gospel reminds us very much that to say, I believe to say, I trust is not the same as believing and trusting.

And we are learning that those are gifts from God, not things we can develop or create. We can only ask for them with an open and hungry heart.

Closing Prayer

Father, only you can gift us with the things that we need in order to live the life you are calling us to live. Help us to continually trust more in you than in our own ideas, our own convictions, and know that true knowledge of you is truly the gift of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. And we ask this in Jesus. name, Amen.