Homily: Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 15, 2026
My dear brothers and sisters, from the gospel reading just read to our hearing, we continue our journey on the Sermon on the Mount. Two Sundays ago, we reflected on the beatitudes, last Sunday, Jesus reminded us the role we have to play in the world as the salt that purifies and preserves the moral life of the world and our role as the light that shows the world the light of Christ. This Sunday, the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ reminds us that obedience to the commandment of God begins in the heart, it begins from the purity and sincerity of our intentions. In this gospel reading, Jesus admonishes that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. One reason for which Jesus had consistently criticized the behavior of the Scribes and the Pharisees was that they were very rigorous only in their external observance of the letters of the law of Moses but this observance lacked true sincerity of heart and was not done out of charity. They sought more the praise of men. Their obedience to the law would be regarded more as mere eye service.
There was this man who drove through red traffic light without stopping and he was pulled by the police. The policeman asked him, didn’t you see the redlight? The man responded that he saw the red light. The policeman further asked him why didn’t you stop? The man answered, because I did not see you the policeman. So, for the man, the emphasis was not on the need to obey the traffic light, instead escaping the penalty from the police was what mattered for him. Brothers and sisters, our relationship with God is much more serious than traffic laws, the commandments of God are not red traffic light and God is not a policeman waiting to pull us by the side if we do not obey His commandments, escaping penalty is not the objective of the commandments of God. The crux of Jesus’ teaching on the Sermon on the Mount is that beyond the letters of the law, we should seek the motive for the commandments of God and write this essence of the law of God on our hearts.
This is like a new teaching. Jesus tries to instill in the heart of his disciples that thoughts are just as important as deeds. It is not enough not to commit a sin, the work begins first in not wishing or desiring sin in our heart. It is not enough not to commit murder or not to commit adultery or not swear falsely, we begin the spiritual struggle from not wishing them, not desiring these sins. We start obedience to these commandments by first purifying our intentions. By the world’s standards, people are considered good if they never do a forbidden thing. The world is not concerned to judge people’s thoughts. However, by Jesus’ standard, our thoughts are as in important as our deeds. God sees everything both the secrets of our heart and the intentions of our mind. It is for this reason that we need not stop at anything in working to have a pure heart, feeding our soul with holy thoughts, nourishing it with word of God and the Sacraments, avoiding sins and occasions of sins because the root of sin begins in the heart. If we fight evil from the nursery, we are most likely to be more victorious. If our heart is dirty, but externally we pretend to be good Christians, Jesus cautions against such Pharisaic attitude.
In both the first reading and the gospel, we see hard examples of spiritual decisions, they may seem very hard but they tell us of the urgent need for us to run away from anything evil. The wisdom writer in the first reading from the book of Sirach tells us that the choice of fire or water, life or death is in our hands, choose fire or death and you will perish forever. In the gospel, Jesus admonishes us that if your right eye will cause you to sin or your right hand, cut it off and throw it away, it is better to enter into life with deformity than our whole body thrown into fire. This may sound funny and impossible but even some animals do it, if you catch a lizard by its tail, the lizard will eject its tail and run for its life. If a trap catches some rodents in their leg, we normally see that they will detach their leg and run for their dear life. In as much as we are not to take the words of Jesus literally, but Jesus’ word reminds us that if anything, any habit, any association, any pleasure is trying to seduce us to sin and turn out to be our ruin, we must ruthlessly and surgically cut off from our life that which is trying to destroy our spiritual life.
