GOD’S WORD FOR THE DAY (based on Catholic Liturgical Readings)
DATE:8TH FEBRUARY 2017
WEDNESDAY OF THE 5TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
(MEMORIAL OF SAINT JOSEPHINE BAKHITA)
FIRST READING: Genesis 2:4-9, 15-17
PSALM: Psalm 104:1-2, 27-30
GOSPEL: Mark 7:14-23
THEME: TRADITIONS OF THE ELDERS
It was a weekday. We had spent considerable time that morning adoring Christ present in the Eucharist. When the whole celebration was over, I moved towards the sanctuary and gently put off the lighted candles on the altar with a breath. As I dutifully packed all the religious items on the altar to place them in the sacristy, an elderly parishioner walked towards me and said, “Father, candles on the altar are not to be put off with a blow of air, rather by tapping the wick of the candle with one’s fingers.” As she walked away from me, I smiled and said to myself, “There goes another tradition of the elders.”
When Moses gave the Israelites the Commandments of the Lord, he said to them, “You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you” (Deut. 4:2). However, with the passage of time, the “traditions of the elders” developed. These traditions, sometimes called the oral law, started as commentaries on the Commandments. Soon, they were designed to supplement God’s written Law. Championed by the Pharisees, these traditions of the elders gained so much prominence to the extent that in some instances the Commandments of the Lord was set aside in favour of them ( Mk. 7:9-13).
The Gospel text for today revolves around one of such traditions of the elders – the washing of hands. The hand-washing was to remove defilement caused by contact with what was ritually unclean. If the intention was solely for hygienic purpose, it would have made sense but to make the washing of hands a sine qua non for one to be spiritually acceptable to God was an overstatement.
Jesus vigorously attacked the motive behind such practice saying, “Nothing that goes into someone from outside can make that person unclean; it is the things that come out of someone that make that person unclean…It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mk 7:15, 20-23).
With this statement, Jesus shifts the discourse from the external to the internal aspect of an authentic spiritual life. To follow Christ is an interior journey of faith that manifests itself by concrete expressions of love of neighbour.
In our quest to follow the Lord Jesus, may we give the Holy Spirit the chance to purify all our individual and collective “human traditions” so that our faith in God would sprout in practical expressions of love.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, strengthen my faith in you and deepen my resolve to embrace your way of life. Amen
Andrews Obeng, svd
DIVINE WORD MISSIONARIES
BIBLICAL PASTORAL MINISTRY
(Ghana Province)
“May the darkness of sin and the night of unbelief vanish before the light of the Word and the Spirit of grace. And may the heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all people” (St. Arnold Janssen).