THE WORK OF PURIFICATION

TUESDAY, TWENTY FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

1 Thess 2:1-8; Ps 139:1-3,4-6; Mt 23:23-26

The Cleaning of the Inside of Our Cup

To become a suitable vessel that will contain the precious divine contents, we must let God cleanse us of everything unclean within us. God is the one who purifies us and makes us ready to contain what he desires to pour into us. What God desires to pour into us is nothing created, but himself; for he made us to be his holy temple. Based on this divine intention, our spiritual life is divided into three stages, as we have noted in our previous reflections: the stage of purification, the stage of illumination, and the stage of union. Each of these stages does not exist in exclusion of the others, but each is dominated by one particular divine activity. They are all divine activities in which we participate by faith, hope, and love. Purification is the first stage that commences with our profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is the foundation for entering this challenging stage of purification. It is difficult for us, because it is marked with intense demand to give up our wills and interests to embrace God’s will expressed in the Gospel. Our decision to follow Jesus Christ must be firm and resolute for us to be able to scale the hurdles of the flesh, the world, and the devil. The making of a firm resolution is not just once, but must be renewed constantly in prayer, aided by the Sacrament of Penance and Eucharist. Our Lord usually sends spiritual pleasures to help us remain resolved in following him at this stage.

The danger at this stage is that the evil one can easily corrupt our resolution to follow Jesus Christ when it is not firm enough and not constantly renewed. He finds a way to make the external religious activities of prayer, fasting, and so on, serve the self in place of God. We see this evil operative in the scribes and the Pharisees, whom Jesus condemned in the Gospel. “Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You who pay your tithe of mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the Law—justice, mercy, good faith! These you should have practised, without neglecting the others.” The virtues of justice, mercy, and good faith flow from within us when we focus on God and his word. Good faith is the root of our relationship with God; with it, we offer God what is his due, our whole self, which is the essence of justice. With the light God sheds in us through his word, we see ourselves as we truly are and treat others as we desire to be treated by God; that is mercy. Thus, the lack of these foundational virtues in the scribes and Pharisees, and in us, demonstrates a lack of focus on God and his word. Their absence corrupts every external religious practice. Corrupted external religious practices will never make us holy or pleasing to Jesus Christ. We will rather be leading people astray. Hence, Jesus invites us to subject our inside to cleansing. “Blind Pharisees! Clean the inside cup and dish first so that the outside may become clean as well.” When we present ourselves sincerely to God in the Sacrament of Penance, the external practices regain their meaning and efficacy.

The empty religious practices of the scribes and Pharisees, condemned by our Lord, are contrasted with Saint Paul’s genuine spiritual and religious/physical activities. His intention to please the Lord at every turn of his life makes his words and activities effective in communicating the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Thessalonians. He does everything for the love of God and the salvation of souls. “We have not taken to preaching because we are deluded, or immoral, or trying to deceive anyone; it was God who decided that we were fit to be entrusted with the Good News, and when we are speaking, we are not trying to please men but God, who can read our inmost thoughts.” In Paul, we see how sincerity or good faith excludes self-interest from being the motivation in a Christian’s life. His activities among his converts are marked with good faith, justice, and mercy. Because he stood for God and not for himself, he was a mother to them. “Like a mother feeding and looking after her own children, we felt so devoted and protective towards you, and had come to love you so much, that we were eager to hand over to you not only the Good News but our whole lives as well.” When we consistently set our interests aside for God's daily, he fills us with his will.

Let us pray: O God, who cause the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.