“You justify yourselves in the sight of others,
luke 16:15
but God knows your hearts.”
Reflection
Jesus tells his disciples that the person who is trustworthy in small matters can also be trusted with great ones. He says that no one can serve two masters, for they will love one and hate the other. The Pharisees sneer at his teaching, and Jesus tells them that while they justify themselves in front of others, God truly knows their hearts.
God is the only one who truly knows our hearts. We may put on outward appearances to others, try to justify our actions, but interiorly, God knows our true motives. When we love something more than God, such as money like the Pharisees, we might try to justify it to others and put our unhealthy attachment in a positive light.
However, we cannot deceive God. Trying to justify our love for earthly goods will not work. We must either be completely devoted to God or not. For as Jesus says, we cannot serve God and mammon. In this way, attempting to justify ourselves for other people is fruitless, because only God matters in the end.
Reflect on the unhealthy attachments you may have in your life. Do you try to justify those attachments? Ask the Holy Spirit for the grace to serve only Christ and grow in understanding of your own heart.
Saint of the Day
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity: 1880 – 1906
| “I think that in Heaven my mission will be to draw souls by helping them to go out of themselves in order to cling to God by a wholly simple and loving movement and to keep them in this great silence within which will allow God to communicate Himself to them and to transform them into Himself.” St. Elizabeth |
The Healing Word 