Reflection on the Gospel – Monday, June 30, 2025

There’s something striking in the contrast between today’s readings in the Liturgy of the Word. Jesus seems very different from the God who, in the story with Abraham, slowly agrees to reduce his threat of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus, on the other hand, is clear and firm: no compromises. Yet, in another place, He Himself says He came to fulfill the Law down to the last letter. And isn’t honoring one’s parents a sacred law?

I once heard a preacher say that these strong Gospel passages should be understood as hyperbole—rhetorical exaggeration. That may be true, but we shouldn’t use that as an excuse. I think this passage from Matthew goes much deeper. Who knows our heart better than the Word through whom everything was made? And so He saw in the heart of the disciple what He may also see in each of us. “The heart is more deceitful than anything else and beyond cure—who can understand it?” we read in Jeremiah 17:9. We are so good at deceiving others—and even deceiving ourselves. We know our weakness and our lack, and in front of others and even in front of ourselves, we want to appear virtuous, generous, charitable…

In this way, we justify not having that “firm determination” that Teresa of Jesus spoke about. We postpone, with “good reasons,” the radical following to which the Master calls us. Sometimes we’re not even aware we’re doing it. But if we look honestly at our lives, we might find ourselves in those verses by Lope de Vega:
“So many times the angel said to me:
‘Soul, look now out the window.
See how lovingly He keeps knocking.’
And how many times, O sovereign beauty,
I answered, ‘Tomorrow we’ll open,’
just to give the same answer again tomorrow.”

Let us ask for the grace to hear that call of love—and to respond without delay.