Daily Gospel Reflection

Explore Your Inner Pharisee

Throughout the gospel, Jesus points out common mistakes. Are you making some of those common mistakes in your life right now? Hi, I'm Matthew Kelly. Welcome back to Radical & Relevant, where we are exploring today's Gospel. Today's Gospel comes from Mark's Gospel, chapter 2 verses 18 to 22. Now John the Baptist's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh skins."

As we read the gospel each day, we're looking for a word, a phrase, or an idea to focus on. The word I picked today is Pharisees because when we read the gospels, the great challenge is to learn to see ourselves in every single person, to learn to see ourselves in their motives, in their actions, in their words. And it's easy to see ourselves in the good guys, right? But very often do people read the gospels and think, "Okay, well, oh, Jesus is great. Jesus reminds me of me," or, "These other people are great. They remind me of me." And this is sort of our spiritual arrogance, right? But the challenge is to look at it and say, "Okay, how am I like the Pharisees? How am I like the Pharisees?" And so the word I picked today is Pharisee. How am I like a Pharisee? What actions and behaviors in my life are like the Pharisees? And sometimes we become aware of it, right? Maybe it's gossip. And then we root it out. And then all of a sudden, we find ourselves in a conversation we're gossiping about something again, or gossiping about someone again. And what have we done? We've become like the Pharisees again.

And so today, I want you to explore your phariseeclical side, the ways that you act like the Pharisees so that we can root that out and take that out of our lives. The virtue of today is perspective. In order to see ourselves in all of the people in the Scriptures, we need to step back. We need to get perspective. We need to take the long view. In order to really work on our spiritual lives, we have to take the longest view of all, the view into eternity. And so today, let's step back. Let's think about, okay, in what ways are we like the Pharisees? How are we being called to change? How are we being called to grow? And what new life will that bring to you, to your relationships, to your family, to your work, to your colleagues, to your children, to your personal finances, to your health, to every aspect of your life?

Have a great day. And remember, do not just be yourself. Be the very best version of yourself, all that God created you to be.