CLEANSE FIRST THE INSIDE OF THE CUP By Duchess Audrey | 25/08/2026 Brothers and sisters, today's Gospel doesn't stroke us the right way. It grabs us by the collar and sets us in front of a mirror, the mirror of our own hypocrisy. Jesus takes aim at the scribes and Pharisees who "strain out a gnat and swallow a camel" (Mt 23:23-26). Fair warning: this text wasn't written for them. It was written for us. So let's talk about it plainly, with tenderness, but without indulgence. "WHERE IS THAT WRITTEN IN THE BIBLE?" How many times have we heard that little line, delivered with a triumphant smirk, the moment someone mentions a Catholic practice; the rosary, fasting, processions, the veneration of relics? "Where is that written in the Bible?" As if Scripture had dropped straight out of the sky, ready-made, independent of the Church that carried it, discerned it, and handed it down for centuries. In fact, it was precisely the Catholic Church, gath...