14 December 2026 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Latin Rite · മലയാളം
“The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good… for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45
Paul tells the Corinthians to “clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch… For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.” Sin tolerated in a community spreads like yeast; holiness requires decision.
Jesus teaches that each tree is known by its fruit, and words come from the heart's treasure. St John of the Cross, the Carmelite mystic, taught that the heart must be purified, even through dark nights, so that God alone may fill it. Before Christmas we ask: what is stored in my heart?
Theme: “Out of the abundance of the heart.”
A good tree, a clean heart; St John of the Cross.
“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26
“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit.” Luke 6:43–44
Apply: Ask God for a new heart in prayer today.
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23
“The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45
Apply: Replace one harsh word with a kind one today.
“Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.” Jeremiah 17:7–8
“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:27
Apply: Make a good confession before Christmas.
A good heart bears good fruit.
Let God purify and fill it.
Take-home resolution: Examine your words each night this week.
Dear friends, St Paul writes very strongly to the Corinthians about a scandal in their community: a man living in an immoral relationship, and the community proud instead of grieving (1 Corinthians 5:1–2). Paul is not being harsh for its own sake. He knows that sin tolerated spreads.
He uses an image from the Passover: a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough. Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, for our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed; let us celebrate the festival with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5:6–8).
Before Passover, Jewish families searched the whole house for every crumb of yeast and threw it out. The Christmas fast is our search through the house of the heart: the old grudge, the hidden habit, the dishonest income, the bitter word. Confession is the cleaning.
In the Gospel Jesus says: no good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit; each tree is known by its own fruit; out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Luke 6:43–45). Our words reveal our hearts.
Today we remember St John of the Cross, the Carmelite mystic who taught that the soul must be emptied of attachments to be filled with God. He was imprisoned by his own brothers, yet wrote some of the most beautiful love poetry in the Church. A good tree, even in a dark cell, bore good fruit.
This week, let us listen to our own speech. What comes out of our mouth at home, at work, on social media? If it is criticism and complaint, the root needs care. Let us bring that root to confession before Christmas, and ask God for a heart from which good words flow. Amen.
Children, a good tree gives good fruit. When your heart is good, your words and actions will be good too!
Lord, purify my heart as you purified St John of the Cross, so that from its good treasure only good may come, and you alone may fill it. Amen.
Paul tells a Corinthian church that has grown proud to clear out the old yeast, for Christ our paschal lamb has been sacrificed. Jesus says that a tree is known by its fruit, and that the mouth speaks from what fills the heart. Both readings look for the source of what we do, and both call for purification. The Church keeps today the memory of St John of the Cross, who taught that the heart must be emptied so that God alone may fill it.
Setting.
Paul founded the church at Corinth, a busy Greek port under Roman rule, and wrote this letter from Ephesus in the mid-50s AD (16:8). He has been told of a scandal: a man is living with his father's wife, presumably his stepmother, which both the Law (Leviticus 18:8) and Roman law forbade. What grieves Paul most is that the community is proud of itself and does nothing.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“you are to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” (5:5)
The goal of this severe step is salvation, not revenge. On the wording: the POC reads “flesh” as the man's base passions (അധമവികാരങ്ങൾ); the Greek word is sarx.
“Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?” (5:6)
A proverb, also used in Galatians 5:9. Tolerated sin is not a private matter.
“For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.” (5:7)
Paul does not say “become holy, and then Christ will save you”. It is the other way round: the Lamb has already been sacrificed, so live as the people of the Passover. The moral command rests on what God has done.
“Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (5:8)
The whole Christian life is a feast of Passover, kept not once a year but every day, with sincerity and truth as its bread.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that Christ is the Paschal Lamb (CCC 608) and that the Eucharist is the Lord's own Passover (CCC 1340). Exclusion from communion remains a serious, healing remedy of the Church, and is lifted when the sinner repents (CCC 1463). The Church's discipline serves the conversion of the one who has sinned and protects the holiness of the community.
Setting.
These sayings come near the end of the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20–49). Jesus has told his disciples to love their enemies, not to condemn, and to see the log in their own eye first (6:41–42). Now he explains how such a life is possible: everything grows from the inner life. Matthew uses similar words in 7:16–20 and 12:33–35. The next verses say that hearing without doing is a house without a foundation (6:46–49).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit;” (6:43)
This concerns character more than single acts. Jesus does not deny that people can change. The whole Gospel calls for conversion: by grace a bad tree can be made good.
“for each tree is known by its own fruit.” (6:44)
A test for ourselves before it is a test for others, since the verses just before warn against judging (6:37, 41–42).
“for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.” (6:45)
In the Bible the heart is the seat of thought and choice, not only of feeling. The way we speak of others shows what we have stored inside.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that the heart is the seat of moral personality (CCC 2517) and the hidden centre where we choose life or death (CCC 2563). Good works are therefore not a way to buy grace, but the fruit of the tree that grace has made good. St John of the Cross, whose words the Catechism quotes, gives the final test: at the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love (CCC 1022).
What does “hand this man over to Satan” mean?
Most understand it as a form of exclusion from the community: put outside the Church's fellowship, the man stands in the realm that is not under Christ's protection. It is not a curse, for its stated aim is “that his spirit may be saved”. What “destruction of the flesh” means exactly is debated: suffering, or the death of his sinful way of life. 2 Corinthians 2:5–11 asks the Church to forgive a repentant offender; St John Chrysostom thought it was the same man, though many modern scholars doubt it.
St John of the Cross (1542–1591), a Spanish Carmelite, worked with St Teresa of Ávila to reform the Carmelite order. Carmelite brothers who opposed the reform imprisoned him at Toledo for months in 1577–78, and there he began his great poem, the Spiritual Canticle. Pope Pius XI named him a Doctor of the Church in 1926. Carmel's spirituality is well known among us in Kerala, through St Kuriakose Elias Chavara and St Euphrasia, among others. His “dark night” fits today's Gospel: God clears the storehouse of the heart, so that only love remains.