February 15, 2026 ~ 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time ~ Year A

Spiritual Reflection

February 15, 2026 ~ 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time ~ Year A (PDF)

I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and
Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:17-37 

. . .According to St. Therese, “Holiness does not consist in this or that practice; it consists in a disposition of the heart, which makes us always humble and little in the arms of God, well aware of our feebleness, but boldly confident in the father’s goodness.”. . .

Jesus said that, in order to receive the kingdom of God, we have to receive it like a child. . . .

If somebody wants to enter the kingdom of God, such a person must seriously consider the meaning of these words of Jesus Christ. If this person does not receive the kingdom like a child, such a person will not enter it, and will remain enclosed in the very tight borders of being ruled by his own ‘I’.

We cannot be in both kingdoms at the same time. We can depart from one in order to receive the other – the one offered to us by God. Whoever does not receive the gift of God’s kingdom will not enter it. Such a person is somewhere else, engaged in the kingdom of his own dreams and illusions. In order to receive the Lord, Who is revealing Himself to us, we have to let go of our dear illusions and stand before Him in truth, acknowledging that on our own we have nothing. Only when the posture of childlike simplicity appears in our interior life will we then be capable of depending totally, in everything, on God.

When they are small, children unreservedly trust their parents. From their parents, children learn about the world. A child looks at everything as if through the eyes of his parents. Children try to mimic their parents’ opinions and accept their parents’ ways of thinking and judging as their own. To receive God’s kingdom like a child means to attempt to look at the world, other people, and finally oneself, in the same way as our Heavenly Father looks at us. What is His gaze like? Among other things, the challenge that Jesus directed to the Apostles during the Last Supper addresses this question: “I give you a new commandment; love one another. As I have loved you, you also should love one another." God’s gaze is always loving. Jesus, relying on His love toward His disciples, calls them to imitate His love by loving others as He loves. It is not enough to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We have to love as God loves. It is true that it is quite difficult for us to even love our neighbor as ourselves. This challenge of Christ to love others as God loves them can seem beyond our capability; but, for the evangelical child, nothing is impossible. Totally focused on the Father, the child looks at the world in the same way God the Father looks at the world. The evangelical child cherishes the Father’s example and tries to imitate God in everything.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus in her childlike trust and simplicity admitted:

Ah! Lord, I know you don’t command the impossible. You know better than I do my weakness and imperfection; You know very well that never would I be able to love my sisters as You love them, unless You, O my Jesus, loved them in me. It is because You wanted to give me this grace that You made your new commandment. Oh! How I love this new commandment since it gives me the assurance that Your Will is to love in me all those You command me to love!. . .

S.C. Biela, Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock, pp 79-82

References from the Catechism of the Catholic Church

1965 The New Law or the Law of the Gospel is the perfection here on earth of the divine law, natural and revealed. It is the work of Christ and is expressed particularly in the Sermon on the Mount. It is also the work of the Holy Spirit and through him it becomes the interior law of charity: "I will establish a New Covenant with the house of Israel.  I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." 19

1966 The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It works through charity; it uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it:

If anyone should meditate with devotion and perspicacity on the sermon our Lord gave on the mount, as we read in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, he will doubtless find there …  the perfect way of the Christian life .  This sermon contains … all the precepts needed to shape one's life. 20

Questions for Reflection

1.          What four words would I use to describe the disposition of my heart?
2.          Righteousness is “living in right relationship with God, people and creation.” How does this look in my life??
3.          How can the Blessed Mother help me when I am lacking childlike trust and simplicity?

Prayer after Sharing

Thank you, God, for allowing me to see the truth about my weaknesses and how it calls upon the abyss of your merciful Love.