Written by 
Claretian Communications Foundation, Inc.
28TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Psalter: Week 4 / (Green/White)
St. Hedwig, religious
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, virgin
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 1: 1-2, 3, 4, 6: Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.
1st Reading: Galatians 5: 18-25
But when you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law.
You know what comes from the flesh: fornication, impurity and shamelessness, idol worship and sorcery, hatred, jealousy and violence, anger, ambition, division, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. I again say to you what I have already said: those who do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy and peace, patience, understanding of others, kindness and fidelity, gentleness and self-control. For such things there is no law or punishment.
Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its vices and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us live in a spiritual way.
Gospel: Luke 11: 42-46
A curse is on you, Pharisees! To the temple you give a tenth of all, including mint and rue and other herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. These ought to be practiced, without neglecting the other obligations.
A curse is on you, Pharisees, for you love the best seats in the synagogues and to be greeted in the marketplace. A curse is on you, for you are like tombstones of the dead which can hardly be seen; people don’t notice them, and make themselves unclean by stepping on them.”
Then a teacher of the law spoke up and said, “Master, when you speak like this, you insult us, too.”
And Jesus answered, “A curse is on you also, teachers of the law. For you prepare unbearable burdens and load them on the people, while you yourselves do not move a finger to help them.
REFLECTION:
“Justice and our love of God.”
There are times when the kind of justice we exercise appears to be double-standard. We seem to demand what is just for us but would fail to exercise justice toward other people. Worse, there are instances when we tend to justify our double-standard way of exercising justice with our claim that we love God. This particular claim is expressed in a very narrow and limited manner, merely shown in rituals that have nothing to do with justice. In today’s Gospel, Jesus expressed his ouai or woe addressed to the Pharisees and teachers of the law. Remember that this kind of woe is an interjection of grief on the part of Jesus. Here, Jesus expressed his grief because the Pharisees and the teachers of the law equate the love of God with external rituals while forgetting to practice justice. As religious leaders during that time, they were expected to be the first ones to exercise justice as the very expression of their love of God. Justice and our love of God are inseparable. If we separate these two, we would end up performing empty religious rituals.
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