Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Matthew (6: 1-6, 16-18) in which Jesus says, ‘when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you’.

Fr Paul says the gospel reading from Matthew is one of those wonderful passages where Matthew makes his message memorable through repetition. This happens several times in the Sermon on the Mount. The gospel enshrines the practice of the three good works of Judaism, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The warning is against parading good works: they should be known only to our Father in heaven. Most of us will have digested this triple lesson, but more relevant is the insistence that what matters is the relationship between ourselves and our Father in heaven, expressed in these good works.

Today’s Gospel Lesson – What matters is the relationship between God and ourselves.