Wednesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 331

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.”

Saint Mark tells us that even Jesus’ disciples were confounded by this teaching. Their Jewish upbringing had rigorously insisted upon certain dietary restrictions. They should never eat pork. They should always eat kosher foods. Any infraction was a serious violation and rendered one unclean; they were unfit to worship God or to associate with other Jews. Though uncleanness was not exactly sinful, to ignore it and not to seek immediate purification were.

Jesus teaching in his disciples’ minds was like new wine poured into old wineskins. They exploded. Within a very few years they would announce the “Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God” to gentiles who had never learned Jewish dietary practices and never would.

Occasionally I scan Catholic magazine and newspapers. Most of them have an “Ask Father” section and they very often include the same questions I heard in grade school, sixty years ago. Letters to the Editor often raise the same complaints I heard after the Second Vatican Council fifty years ago. Why do I have to shake hands with people during Mass? Is it a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday? Why don’t the nuns wear their habits? What are indulgences and how can I get them?

Sometimes I wonder if Christianity is a rather poor religion. Religion is naturally conservative; it only wants to preserve the old values and old ways. Christianity maintains and celebrates values, but they’re not old. Our values are always fresh, always challenging and always need rethinking and re-imagining. 

If someone asks about missing Mass on Sunday, I asked, “Did you miss it? Did you feel like you had missed something that makes your weekend and the following week complete, something that is vital to your way of life?” If the answer is no, then maybe you don’t belong in Church in the first place. 

Attending church means paying full attention to it. It requires preparation, including daily prayer, daily reflection on the scriptures and participation in the life of the parish. 

In today’s gospel Jesus speaks as if the spiritual life is more real and more important than the life of rules and regulations. What abides in one’s heart is more real than one’s appearance, habits or behaviors. Conformity to religious practices may be motivated by many spirits, both conscious and unconscious. Some may be disinterested, some may be diabolical. 

Only one is of God and that is the Holy Spirit.