In an age of superficiality–where we can obsess over outward appearances–we often try to ensure that our lives look spotless to others. Thankfully, Jesus helps us by offending our desires to be popular, and challenges us to be concerned with the cleanliness of our hearts and interior life, over and above our fronted fallacies.
Today, let us ask ourselves: Who are our “blind guides”? What tendencies dwell in us that are not planted by God and thus need to be uprooted by His boundless and unfailing grace? For indeed, God always works to improve the condition of our hearts as a means of helping us grow into more loving persons. God does this through our participation in the sacraments, and through both our interior and communal prayer. So when Christ has no qualms about offending us through a firm and loving correction, let us listen well, and respond generously. After all, Jesus knows best.
—Emanuel Werner, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic of the Midwest Province currently studying philosophy and theology at Fordham University.