Luke 16:13–17

Verse 13. No servant can serve two masters, and so forth This is added to shew us, that to dispose of our riches according to the will of the Almighty, it is necessary to keep our minds free from all attachment to them. Theophylactus.—Let the avaricious man here learn, that to be a lover of riches, is to be an enemy of Christ. Ven. Bede.

“Mammon” refers to riches or a false god of wealth.

Verse 14. Now the Pharisees, and so forth Christ had admonished the Scribes and Pharisees not to presume too much on their own sanctity, but to receive repenting sinners, and to redeem their own sins with alms. But they derided these precepts of mercy and humility; either because they esteemed what he commanded them to be useless, or because they thought they had already complied with them. Ven. Bede.—The Pharisees considered temporal riches as true goods, and the recompense which God had promised to such as observed his laws; they therefore laughed at the doctrine of Jesus Christ, which extolled liberality and alms-deeds, and despised the Master who, on all occasions, testified his great regard for poverty in his discourses, in his conduct, in the choice of his apostles, who were all poor, and had no pretensions whatever to exterior pomp or show. Calmet.

Verse 15. Who justify yourselves, and so forth But our Lord, detecting their hidden malice, shews that their pretended justice is all hypocrisy. Theophylactus.—But God knoweth, and so forth They justify themselves before men, whom they look upon as despicable, and abandoned sinners, and esteem themselves as not standing in need of giving alms as a remedy of sin; but he who shall lay open the secrets of hearts, sees the base atrocity of that pride which thus blinds them, and swells within their breasts. Ven. Bede.—Yes, all those exterior actions which appeared great, and which were admired by men, being vitiated with improper motives and sinister designs, are an abomination in the sight of God. A.

Verse 16. The law and the prophets, and so forth Not that the law was made void by the coming of John, but that what the law and the prophets had taught, had been suited to the very imperfect dispositions of the Jews, who as yet were incapable of relishing perfect virtue. At the coming of John, the gospel began to be preached, and this called men to a life of perfect sanctity. Saint Thomas Aquinas—Our Saviour came not to destroy, but to fulfil the law and the prophets. Matthew 5:17.