[ Today's Readings ]
The exterior signs that indicate holiness only matter when they reflect what is going on inside. Washing the outside of the dish needs to reflect an interior removal of plunder and evil. What matters is "only faith working through love."
Here we come to the point which might not be obvious. How do we cleanse everything, including what is within? Is we're cleansing the inside do we do it primarily by interior or spiritual acts? Jesus is more practical.
But as to what is within, give alms,
and behold, everything will be clean for you.
This is an exterior act. But it implies an interior disposition. It is supposed to mean giving ourselves away. If giving alms became merely external, if it was only done grudgingly in order to check a box it could not make our interiors clean. On the other hand, alms given with that desire to be made clean do cleanse us. Alms where we try not only to give but to give ourselves away do in fact transform us.
And I will walk at liberty,
because I seek your precepts.
Maybe we're getting ready to give some money to hurricane victims in Haiti or to some other noble cause. Let us take a moment to actually connect and empathize with those to whom we direct our charity. If we do this, if we actually see and internalize a bit before we click and give, we allow it the act to penetrate us more deeply and to cleanse us more completely.
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins (see First Peter 4:8).
And I will lift up my hands to your commands
and meditate on your statutes.
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