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Gospel Commentary for tuesday, October 14, 2025
In today’s Gospel, I’d like to highlight two things.
The first is the great freedom with which Jesus lived and acted. It’s clear that he didn’t “belong” to anyone and wasn’t guided by human respect or false diplomacy. He wasn’t exactly “prudent” when it came to speaking to those who listened to him. He wasn’t the kind of person who tried to win friends at any cost—quite the opposite. It’s easy to see why, after days like the one we read about today, things ended the way they did: with him on the cross, utterly alone. But Jesus never backed down in the face of difficulties, nor was he afraid of the negative consequences that might come from bearing witness to the truth.
Freedom is one of the greatest gifts God has given us—a true treasure. It’s up to us to make it a cornerstone of our personality, or to waste it by trying to fit in, by always saying what others expect us to say, by seeking approval instead of being witnesses to the Kingdom.
From that starting point, the second thing I’d like to underline becomes clearer. Our relationship with others—and with God as well—has to go beyond appearances, beyond simply following a set of “social,” “established,” or “commonly accepted” norms. It must come from the heart, from a personal conviction about what we are called to do.
Jesus criticized the Pharisees because their relationship with God was based on a detailed, external, formal observance of rules—rules that never reached the heart. Washing one’s hands before eating (for the Pharisees), or going to Mass on Sundays (for Christians), doesn’t mean much if our hearts harbor hatred, vengeance, or envy. It makes no sense if we despise our brothers and sisters who don’t think like us, don’t feel like us, don’t speak our language, or belong to another team, country, religion, or political party.
When we live from the heart—aware that we are sons and daughters of God—we’ll be truly free to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom: that we are all called to build together a more fraternal and better world. A world as God wants it to be.