Daily Catholic Lectio
Tue, 25 Aug 2026
XXI Week in Ordinary Time
2 Thes 2:1-3, 14-17. Mt 23:23-26
Cleanse the Inside
Jesus continues to rebuke the scribes and the Pharisees. In today’s Gospel, He rebukes them for two reasons. First, they give one-tenth of small things, but neglect justice, mercy, and faith. Second, they give importance to outward purity, but neglect inner purity.
Let us take for our reflection the words of Jesus: “Clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.”
This sentence can be understood directly and indirectly. Directly, we know from experience that when we wash the inside of a vessel, the outside also becomes clean.
Indirectly, when Jesus speaks of the inside of the cup, He points to the human heart. In the time of Jesus, purity had moved from being a reality of life to becoming a religious ritual. Jesus criticises this tendency to reduce purity to ritual.
Thiruvalluvar, a Tamil poet, says: “Outer purity comes through water; inner purity is known through truth.” He divides purity into outer and inner purity. Both are necessary. He also points out the way to each.
How can we understand purity?
First, purity is readiness. A clean plate is ready to be used for eating. A clean bed is ready to be used for sleeping. A clean room is ready to be used for living.
Second, purity is the original state of a thing. When we buy something, it is clean. As time passes, dirt gathers on it, or it begins to wear out. For example, a dress is clean when it first receives its proper state of being.
The Pharisees and the scribes were concerned about the readiness of the vessels they used. But they were not concerned about the readiness of their hearts to receive God. They did not realise that their own inner state had become stained by the dirt they had placed upon themselves.
This can also be our condition. Is my heart ready to receive God and others? What are the stains that I myself have placed upon my own being?
Through the lies we speak, the anger we grow against others, the violence, enmity, and jealousy we carry, we continue to lose inner purity.
When we scrub dirt strongly, vessels may get scratches. In the same way, when we try to remove our inner dirt, we too may experience wounds and marks. Yet some stubborn stains must be scrubbed away.
The journey towards purity is a continuous journey.
The novelist Paulo Coelho says that when we keep cleaning something, without our knowing it, our inner self also becomes clean.
Therefore, outward purity must become the expression of inner purity. If it is reduced only to ritual, it becomes dangerous.
In today’s first reading, Paul blesses the community and prays that the Lord may encourage their hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word. A clean heart will be ready to speak good and do good.
Today Jesus invites us to cleanse the inside. Let our heart be ready for God. Let our inner life return to its true state. Let our outward actions become the sign of a purified heart.
Fr. Yesu Karunanidhi
Archdiocese of Madurai
A Yesni Prays Initiative
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