Daily Prayer
June 10th, 2010
“… Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
Mt. 5:20
In order to understand today’s Gospel text, we need to reflect a little on the background to Jesus’ message.
The Pharisees were exacting and scrupulous in their attempts to follow their laws. So the question is, ‘How could Jesus call the people to a greater righteousness than theirs?’ The weakness of the Pharisees was that they were content to obey the laws outwardly without allowing God to change their hearts. Jesus was therefore saying that the quality of our goodness should be greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees. They looked pious, but they were far from the Kingdom of God. Elsewhere, Jesus said, “The people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” God judges our hearts as well as our deeds, for it is in the heart that our real allegiance lies.
Jesus is saying that his listeners needed a different kind of righteousness from that of the Pharisees. Our righteousness must come from what God does in us, not what we can do by ourselves. We must go beyond keeping the law to living by the principles behind the law. Moses said “You shall not murder,” but Jesus said that we should not even become angry enough to murder. If we have a problem or grievance with a friend, we should resolve the problem as soon as possible. We are hypocrites if we claim to love God while we hate others.
Prayer
Lord, help me to live by your Truth, so that I may be truly free
The prayer for each day has been prepared by various members of the Holy Family Association. All who visit our website are remembered in prayer. If you would like us to pray for a particular need, simply complete and submit the form on the right hand side of this page. You may wish to leave a comment in the space below.
Just a Thought
How the Holy Family prayer: A Reflection by Pope Benedict XVI
“I would like to invite you to reflect on the place of prayer in the life of the Holy Family of Nazareth. The home of Nazareth, in fact, is a school of prayer where we learn to listen, to ponder and to penetrate the profound meaning of the manifestation of the Son of God, drawing our example from Mary, Joseph and Jesus.
Pope Paul VI during his visit to Nazareth said “we come to understand the need for a spiritual discipline, if we wish to follow the teaching of the Gospel and become disciples of Christ.” And he added: “First, it teaches us silence. Oh! That there would be reborn in us the esteem for silence, that wonderful and indispensable atmosphere of the spirit: while we are deafened by so many noises, sounds and clamorous voices in the frantic and tumultuous times of modern life. Oh! Silence of Nazareth, teach us to be resolute in good thoughts, intent upon the interior life, ready to listen well to the secret inspirations of God and the exhortations of the true masters.”
We can glean several insights on the Holy Family’s prayer and relationship with God from the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ childhood. We may begin with the Presentation of Jesus in the temple. St. Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph, “when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, brought the child up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord”(2:22). Like every observant Jewish family, Jesus’ parents go up to the temple to consecrate the firstborn son to God and to offer sacrifice. Moved by fidelity to the law’s prescriptions, they set off from Bethlehem and go up to Jerusalem with Jesus, who is now forty days old. Instead of a one-year-old lamb, they present the offering of simple families; that is two young pigeons. The Holy Family’s pilgrimage is one of faith, of the offering of gifts, a symbol of prayer, and of encounter with the Lord, whom Mary and Joseph already see in the son Jesus.”
