You should have done these things without neglecting the others. Blind guides! You strain out a
mosquito, but swallow a camel.
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You fill the plate and the cup, with
theft and violence, and then pronounce a blessing over them. Blind Pharisee! Purify the inside first,
then the outside, too, will be purified.
Reflection:
“Purify the inside first, then the outside, too, will be purified.” How easily we forget this, and how
conveniently so! We are all eager to change the world out there: it is enough to observe our
conversations across dining tables or at market places or even at meetings and conferences to
arrive at this conclusion. Rare are the people who work on themselves, their insides. We preach
faith and morality from the housetops and are oblivious, innocently or deliberately, to the mess within.
This disconnect between the inside and the outside explains, not only many of our physical and
emotional illnesses, but also all kinds of abuse stories, sexual, financial, pastoral, etc., that we hear
around. Even in many religious houses, the daily examination of conscience has become a thing of
the past. It is time to make the examen at the end of the day a non-negotiable daily practice, for every
Christian.
© Copyright Bible Diary 2022