REFLECTIONS TODAY

After being challenged in Gennesaret by the Pharisees and their scribes from Jerusalem, Jesus resumes teaching the crowd when he gets home in Capernaum. His topic is connected with the issue raised by his hostile visitors from Jerusalem. What defiles a person is not what he eats, but what comes out of his mind and heart. 

Then Jesus faces his disciples who do not understand his point. He enumerates what makes a person unclean: evil thoughts, greed, envy, malice, etc. What defiles a person is not what he foregoes like handwashing before meals or after marketing, but his attitude. We defile ourselves when we are unkind, inconsiderate, and uncharitable to others.

Let us not imitate the hypocrites, who are so strict about rituals and vestments, but spurt bad words against their priests and bishops or their fellow servants in the Church. Let us be on guard of ourselves. We might be doing the same.

Gospel • Mark 7:14-23

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.”

Source: “366 Days with the Lord 2024,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.