Cycle B - Year I

30 August 2015: Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Liturgical color: Green)

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Loving God from the heart!

Who is the man that is not fascinated by flowers in bloom? A nature lover sees in the flowers the beauty of creation. For the romantics, flowers are an expressive way to show one's love. That is why flowers rule the day on Valentine's Day. But flowers are really nothing devoid of human emotions and intentions. As the Little Prince says, "It is not the rose that is important but the time you wasted on the rose that makes it important."

In the Gospel incident for this Sunday, our Lord Jesus teaches us that what comes from within gives meaning and importance to our external acts.

The Scribes and Pharisees were upset with Jesus because He allowed his disciples to break with their ritual traditions by eating with unclean hands. Washing of the hands before meal was an important religious ritual for the Jews. And in their zeal for holiness many elders developed many other elaborate traditions which become a burden for the people to carry out in their everyday lives. 

Jesus was not primarily concerned with justifying His disciples' omission of washing their hands before eating, but instead used this incident to clarify what true holiness is in the eyes of God. He accused the Scribes and Pharisees of hypocrisy because they appear to obey God's word in their external practices while they inwardly harbor evil desires and intentions. He reminded them of Isaiah's prophesy: "This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts."

Unfortunately, this attitude of "hypocrisy" in serving the Lord is still with us even today. Many of those who profess their faith in Jesus are so much focused on external rituals and practices but forget the reason and meaning for them. 

Thus, the theme of this Sunday's liturgy is a timely reminder that

religious traditions and practices are good, but they become meaningless without our personal intimacy with the Lord. In the incident with the Pharisees and Scribes, for example, Jesus is telling us that external rituals of cleansing are really empty physical acts without inner purification from within us. And such inner purification is essentially the work of the Holy Spirit in a heart that is open and receptive to divine intervention.

In other words, our Lord Jesus Christ reminds us that true holiness is first and foremost a matter of the heart.... a personal intimacy with Jesus our Lord and God.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!