Tess Koning, member of our Parish Pastoral Council and Principal of St Peter’s Primary School, presents our Gospel Reflections this week and today reads from the Gospel of Luke (11: 42-46), in which Jesus says to the Pharisees and lawyers, “Alas for you because you load on men burdens that are unendurable, burdens that you yourselves do not move a finger to lift”.

Tess says, at the time Luke was writing this Gospel his audience were his persecuted community. In this account, he was giving them the courage they would need, that even Jesus had to suffer opposition from the leaders of his time for denouncing their hypocrisy.

The Pharisees’ scrupulous and dutiful observance of religious laws and taboos were covering the lack of true religion – practising the ‘justice and the love of God’ in their lives.

For us today, these sayings of Jesus and the messages to the Pharisees and lawyers are the same. If we dutifully observe religious laws but don’t take this into our lives and practise the justice and love of God, we are not living as followers of Jesus and are no better than they were.

Today, Tess invites us to pray for the grace to be true followers of Jesus and practise the justice and love of God in our lives.