Tuesday, August 25, 2026
Tuesday of the Twenty-first week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 23:23-26
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
2 Thessalonians 2:1-3,14-17
Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be quickly shaken in your mind, and not be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as if from us, saying that the day of Christ has already come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction, to which he called you through our Good News, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm, and hold the traditions which you were taught by us, whether by word, or by letter. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good work and word.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 96:10,11-12,12-13
Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.” The world is also established. It can’t be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar, and its fullness! Let the field and all that is in it exult! Then all the trees of the woods shall sing for joy Let the field and all that is in it exult! Then all the trees of the woods shall sing for joy before the Lord; for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, the peoples with his truth.
Gospel
Matthew 23:23-26
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the platter, that its outside may become clean also.
Lectio
There is a strange comfort in how Paul steadies the Thessalonians. They have been shaken by rumors that the end has already come, whipped into anxiety by every passing word and letter. And Paul does not answer their fear with more prediction or calculation. He tells them, simply, to stand firm and hold to what they were taught, and then he prays that God would comfort their hearts. It is the tenderness of a father who knows that a frightened mind grasps at spectacles and misses the quiet ground beneath its feet.
Jesus, in the Gospel, is diagnosing the same restlessness in another form. The scribes are meticulous about the mint and the dill — the small, countable, visible things — while justice and mercy and faith go quietly untended. It is easier to measure a tithe of herbs than to be honest about the inside of the cup. We reach for the manageable religious task because it lets us feel righteous without letting God near the parts of us that are actually full of extortion and unrighteousness, the resentments and self-protections we would rather not name. The outside is polished precisely so no one, including ourselves, has to look within.
What both readings ask is not more effort but more honesty, and a heart at rest enough to attend to what truly weighs. The Lord reigns, the psalm insists — the world is established and cannot be moved. We do not have to hold everything together by our vigilance. That freedom is exactly what makes it safe to clean the inside of the cup, because we are held by One who loved us first and comforts our hearts before He asks anything of us.
What is the small, measurable religious or moral task you keep tending to that lets you avoid a harder honesty God is asking of you right now?
Where in your life this week have you let a rumor, a comment, or a fear shake you loose from the quiet ground of knowing you are loved — and what would it mean to stand firm there today?
Saint of the day
St. Louis, King of France (1215-1270)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora