REFLECTIONS TODAY

The Code of Holiness in Leviticus 19 prescribes various rules of conduct for the Israelites to become holy before the Lord. They observe the kosher or dietary laws that include what food may be eaten. Blood and certain animals and birds are “unclean” and may not be eaten lest they render the person ritually unclean (Lv 11). For Jesus, however, moral cleanliness has primacy over ritual cleanliness. People would agree with him that what goes into the person enters the stomach and goes out through the usual bodily process. These processes cannot defile anyone. But what comes out of a person comes from the heart—the center of knowledge and volition. The heart determines the morality of one’s conduct. An action makes a person “unclean” when coming from the hardness of heart; inversely, it is pleasing to the Lord when the heart is humble and contrite. In declaring all foods clean, Jesus moves the disciples out of the shadow of kosher to focus on moral cleanliness, avoiding evils that come within, from an unclean heart.

Mk 7:14-23Gospel

Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) “But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.” Ps 37Responsorial psalm “The mouth of the just murmurs wisdom.”

SOURCE: “365 Days with the Lord 2022,” ST. PAULS, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; Fax 632-895-7328; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.