Our site uses cookies to improve the user experience and we recommend accepting its use to take full advantage of the navigation

Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Tuesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
Download
Gospel text (Mk 8:14-21): The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. Jesus enjoined them, “Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” (...).

The temptation: appearance of realism

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, Jesus Christ, by denouncing the “leaven” (evil) of Herod, unmasks one of the facets of a sinful temptation: the appearance of realism. By making decisions is when the question arises: what really matters in my life? There appears the core of every temptation: separate God, which at first seems more urgent in our lives becomes secondary, superfluous and annoying.

To recognize as true only the political and material realities and to leave God aside as something illusory, this is the temptation that threatens us in many ways. The reality is found in the “power” and the “bread”. In front of both, the things of God are unrealistic (a secondary world that is really not needed). The issue is God: is it true or not that He is the reality? Is He really the Good, or should we invent ourselves what is good?

—The issue of God is the fundamental question that puts me at the crossroads of my existence.