Dt. 4: 1-2, 6-8; Ps. 15; Jas 1: 17-18, 21b-22, 27; Mk 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23
“From within…they defile”. Today’s call is for purity of heart, of body, and of faith. Perhaps we can say that we have come a long way in wisdom and intelligence. We understand our humanity more from a psychological and behavioral approach or have we? What about from a spiritual awareness? From an applied perspective everyone starts from ground zero to learn the lesson for themselves. What is the lesson? It is the lesson of how obedience, chastity, truth, faith, and love are living the good life. We all like the good life but we do not always see the good God in his creation. In fact some tend to focus on the “cup half empty”. The Catechism of the Church summarizes it well:
“The faithful must believe the articles of the Creed so that by believing they may obey God, by obeying may live well, by living well may purify their hearts, and with pure hearts may understand what they believe.” (CCC 2518)
Our first reading is the call to obedience. As a parent would say to a child, “Do it” and you will come to understand the good that comes from it. The child’s natural inclination is to believe only what it sees with a limited understanding but God who sees the end result takes the behavioral approach in its commands. Do it, then you will see the goodness of the Lord. Do it then you will discover a greater truth that you can only see by following these “statutes and decrees”. Behaviorist would say trust the process, don’t wait to understand or feel ready to change from within. Change the behavior and you will accomplish the change from within you seek.
In the same way, God the Father is saying observe the commandments “carefully” and you will be wise and it will purify your heart. He is also saying don’t add nor subtract from them, follow my plan. Here is where we struggle. We want to change the plan to meet our comfort zone. The Doctor says, “Take this pill for 14 days” and we start to feel better in 7 so we stop taking it without understanding the consequence of not allowing the full benefit to take effect or we start skipping days or taking only half. Do we know the physiological and pharmacological relationship between the medication and our body? No, but we take away or we add sometimes when we like the benefits like pain pills that become abused. The Old Testament says, “Follow God’s plan”. We tell our children “eat your breakfast”. The response, “I’m not hungry”. God says, “Eat my word”. We say, “I’m too busy.” Then we become malnourished spiritually.
Jesus comes into the world speaking truth to the mind and love to the heart. This is a huge paradigm shift in God’s revelation to humanity. He does not take away from the obedience of the commands but enriches the understanding of the commands through the gifts of the spirit. Jesus tells the Pharisees that they have created their own “human tradition” the laws on top of the law of God and failed to live God’s law in spirit and in truth. We run the same risk if we use Canon Law, the “Big Book of Rules” in judgment and not in mercy to serve God’s commands.
What is this human tradition? In our times we have different customs from region to region and across the continent such as the selection of music, when we kneel and how long we kneel, or whether people hold hands or not or liturgical dance in some countries. Many of these customs develop regionally and the church allow for adaptations to integrate itself into the culture without compromising the essential rites of the General Instructions of the Roman Missal (GIRM). The human tradition is to battle over the little “t” observations and lose sight of the big “T” purpose of the gospel.
Perhaps the question we must ask ourselves is “Does this fulfill the gospel proclamation of salvation?” What is “this”? “This” is our hearts, this is our actions, this is our rules, and this is our voice. It is what comes out of our mouth that defiles not what comes into it unless it becomes the poison of alcohol, drugs, or if we become consumed with pornography, certain video gaming, and even ideologies the world creates separating us from God.
Through obedience to the commands in our external behavior and purity of hearts in our internal beliefs of faith we will act in justice and live in the presence of the Lord. We often say, “God is love and God is mercy” but we don’t say enough of “God is righteous”. Love, mercy, goodness and holiness are feel good attributes of God however “Righteousness” is also an attribute that calls for justice and justice means obedience to God’s law. Injustice comes from within. Seeds of anger lead to evil thoughts and acts of revenge; lustful thoughts to unchastity as sexuality begins in the mind; selfish desires to theft remember that candy bar you grabbed as a child at the store; rejection in the heart to murder, once you objectify a person it becomes easy to kill them in your heart and actions; sexual drives to adultery blaming “hormones made me do it”; greed to lack of charity and loss of generosity the source of love; jealousy to malice with emotional hijacking causing acts of violence; deceit to manipulation, once you buy the lie yourself lying to others comes easy; licentiousness to immorality, the license to sin with euthanasia and killing the unborn; envy to covetousness, worshiping the material god; contempt to blasphemy, using the name of Jesus to cuss or “G-O-D-damn” as if God has anything to do with our anger; arrogance to overbearing, otherwise called “full of it”; and imprudence to folly without the guidance of the spirit poor judgment results. In summary, impurity leads to injustice and apart from the Lord.
Religion that is pure and undefiled is two parts, the giving of self to others and the guarding of self from the sins of others. The world is very creative in coming up with new ways to defile the mind under the cover of “entertainment”. The serpents promise has not changed to “be like gods”. What enters the mind defiles the heart and it manipulates the will to sin. Jesus came with the gift of the Spirit to wash us clean. We are called to be servants, servants to God who chose the cross and remained undefiled. Let us pray to our Blessed Mother in our weakness recognizing the strength of her love to endure suffering at the side of Jesus. Let us be ready to answer the call. We are all called to be saints. Jesus is the way.
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