TODAY'S WORD

By


Fr. Aloysius Santiago sdb
Rector and Parish Priest
Don Bosco Shrine
Lingarajapuram, Bangalore

Mark: 7:8 "You abandon the Commandment of God and hold on to human tradition."


TODAY'S REFLECTION

Today’s first reading is the second of two accounts of the creation of the human person in the opening chapters of Genesis. 

There are two elements at play in human creation in this account, the dust of the soil and the breath of God. 

The author is suggesting that the human person is both of the earth and of God.

We are not purely spiritual beings, and we are not purely material beings. 

We are embodied spirits. Because we are of the earth, we are intimately related to the rest of creation. 

Because we have the breath of God within us, we are intimately related to the Creator God. 

We don’t have to flee our bodies, or flee creation, to encounter God. 

We come to God in all our embodied reality. Similarly, we relate to the rest of creation as God’s agents, endowed with God’s creative Spirit, tasked with giving expression to God’s care for creation. 

As people who have received the breath of God, the Spirit of God, all we say and do in the body is to be shaped by God’s Spirit. 

In the gospel reading, Jesus lists attitudes and actions that are not shaped by God’s Spirit, such as theft, murder, adultery, avarice, deceit, envy, pride and folly.

‘All these evil things’, Jesus says, come from within, from an inner core that is not shaped by God’s Spirit. 

We need God to keep breathing his breath or Spirit of life into our lives, if we are to live in ways that ‘renew the face of the earth’ in the words of today’s responsorial psalm.

When we look deeper into ourselves, we find that, like these Pharisees and the Scribes, perhaps “the vessels of our lives are also long stuck with dirt”…

The dirt of focussing only on external cleanliness… but failing to give importance of internal purity and sincerity

The dirt of using critical and judgemental words… but covering up with a neat smile or sugar-coated words

The dirt of breeding corrupt, devious and greedy temperaments…but outwardly appearing to be charitable and liberal

We need a “dip”

a “dip in the hot waters of correction”… and to be soaked in the “feel of contrition”.  So that we can be “washed clean!”


RESOLUTION

We may feel sad for some time… upset for a few moments. 

Let's resolve to  always remain open to corrections...and co-operate with the Lord in “being washed” of every bit of corruption and malice from our hearts!

St. Joseph, the worker pray for our farmers