Daily Catholic Lectio
Wed, 16 Sep 2026
XXIV Week in Ordinary Time
1 Cor 12:31-13:13. Lk 7:31-35
Change of Rules
In today’s Gospel, Jesus uses the image of a children’s game to describe the attitude of His generation. Children stand in the marketplace and call to one another: “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.”
In this game, one group must respond to what the other group does. When one group plays the flute, the other group must dance. When one group sings a lament, the other group must mourn. But here the complaint is unfair. The children change the rules and then accuse the others of not playing properly.
Jesus says that His generation behaves in the same way. When John the Baptist came with fasting, discipline, and simplicity, they said, “He has a demon.” When Jesus came eating, drinking, and sitting with people, they said, “He is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” They measured John with one rule. They measured Jesus with another rule. They changed the rules according to their own likes and dislikes.
This is the problem Jesus exposes. Some people do not want truth. They want others to fit into the rules they have already made. If others do not fit, they reject them. Even if others do well, they change the rules again and send them away.
There is a similar story in Greek mythology. A thief named Procrustes had a bed in his house. He asked the people he captured to lie on that bed. If the person fit the bed, he was allowed to go. If the person was shorter than the bed, Procrustes stretched him until he died. If the person was longer than the bed, he cut off the head or the legs. The person had to fit the bed, not the bed the person.
Many times, we too behave like this. We keep one rule for one person and another rule for another person. We expect others to dance according to our music. We do not like the rules by which they live. We want them to live according to our measure. And even when they respond well, we suddenly change the rule.
This happens in families, communities, ministries, and workplaces. A person speaks, and we say he speaks too much. The same person keeps silence, and we say he is proud. A person works hard, and we say he is showing off. The same person rests, and we say he is lazy. The problem is not always the other person. Sometimes the problem is the rule we keep changing.
Jesus and John were rejected by some people because they did not fit into their expectations. Yet many others accepted them and lived according to what they received. That is why Jesus says, “Wisdom is proved right by all her children.” True wisdom is not proved by criticism. It is proved by the lives of those who receive it.
In today’s first reading, Paul gives the great hymn to love. After dealing with many problems in the Church of Corinth, Paul places love before them as the highest value. Gifts, knowledge, prophecy, tongues, and sacrifice lose their meaning if love is absent. Love alone gives direction to all gifts.
Paul says, “Love believes all things.” The people of Jesus’ time failed to believe Him because they had no love. They had knowledge, rules, judgments, and religious expectations. But without love, they could not recognise God’s wisdom in John or in Jesus.
Paul also says, “When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.” Our knowledge is partial. Our judgment is partial. Our rules are partial. But love opens us to fullness. Knowledge without love becomes rigid. Rules without love become weapons. Judgment without love becomes rejection.
Jesus invites us today to stop changing the rules in order to reject others. Paul invites us to choose love as the measure of all things. Love does not mean that there are no rules. Love means that rules must serve life, truth, and communion.
Fr. Yesu Karunanidhi
Archdiocese of Madurai
A Yesni Prays Initiative
Yesu Karunanidhi 
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