Michel DeVerteuil
Textual Comments
Today’s passage contains several sayings of Jesus which are very well known; we must therefore make an effort to read the passage not as an abstract teaching but as a story, letting the message emerge from the interplay of characters.
There are three characters, all representing roles in a human community.
1. Jesus’ disciples are humble people. They are not “respectable” or refined. They do not conform to social norms (“the traditions of the elders”) in how they speak, dress or, in this case, “eat with unclean hands”. In the gospels they are classified as “sinners”, those who “break the law”. To judge from Jesus’ remarks in this passage, they are not malicious, their hearts are not unclean.
2. The “Pharisees and scribes” are those who set the norms, in words and in practice. They observe and teach the rules of respectability, their etiquette is beyond reproach. But they are judgmental of those who do not conform; they do not take time to understand them and in the process they are blind to the fact that they go against basic virtues such as humanity and compassion.
Very significantly, the text says that they have “come from Jerusalem”. The company of Jesus and his disciples is not their home territory; they are out of place among these new people.
3. Jesus as always is the protector of the poor. He sees the greatness and beauty that lie beneath their rough externals, defends them passionately against their oppressors. He is harsh with the scribes and Pharisees, but his harshness (as God’s harshness in the Bible) is because of his concern for the poor.
The movement of the story shows the process by which the Church, and every human community dedicated to noble ideals, gradually becomes set in its ways and ends up accepting the false values of the surrounding culture. The Bible always gives a simple criterion for recognizing when this happens – the poor and the marginalized in a country end up being poor and marginalized in the Christian community as well.
The root problem lies with laws that exist originally to protect the weak but end up on the side of the powerful. Someone like Jesus must come on the scene and expose the “hypocrisy” of the community by standing up for the lowly. The community is then forced to revisit its laws in order to distinguish the true ideals of the community (“God’s commandment”) from the “human regulations” which maintain the status quo.
Every community and movement needs laws and customs, as Jesus always taught; but they must be constantly re-examined to see of they conform to God’s laws.
The passage invites us to recognize God-in-Jesus at work in this way in our Church communities and in the world.
We will recognize him at work within our individual selves too. Often we allow ourselves to be oppressed by so-called “laws” that are not from God but are social taboos (gender or ethnic stereotypes, for example). Now they simply block our true selves (“the heart”). One day Jesus comes into our lives – through a friend, a spiritual guide or a moment of prayer – and rescues us from oppression.
Being God’s instrument of liberation is often the principal role of the counselor or spiritual guide. It is also the lofty vocation of the moral theologian in the Church.
Prayer Reflection
Lord, we remember times when we felt out of place,
– among people wealthier or better educated than ourselves;
– when we returned to church after staying away for many years;
– because we were not as successful as our brothers and sisters;
– in a strange country where no one understood what we said.
It was like when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come to Jerusalem
gathered around Jesus and noticed that his disciples
were eating without first washing their hands.
We too were made to feel that we were unclean
because we did not respect the traditions of the elders.
We thank you that you sent someone like Jesus who protected us
– one of our parents, an uncle, an aunt or a grandparent,
– a teacher or community leader,
– a friend who understood what we were going through,
– a book that touched us.
They taught us that what counts in life are the things that come from within,
these are the things that make us unclean.
We were able then to recognize what is merely custom
and in fact keeps people far from the truth of themselves.
Lord, forgive us members of your Church
that we focus on being loyal member of your Church and keeping its laws,
while we put aside your first and only commandment of universal love and compassion,
ignoring sexism, racism, elitism, cultural imperialism and religious intolerance,
all these evil things which come from within the worst of the human heart
and make humanity unclean.
Lord, we thank you for sending us Bernard Haring
and other great moral theologians of our time.
Church discipline had become set in its ways
and was reinforcing the false values of our culture
– laws on divorce and remarriage were weighted against deprived families;
– liturgical rules reinforced the superiority of Western culture;
– seminary studies did not reverence traditional religions of Africa and Asia;
– sexual morality favoured men;
– the laity were deprived of our teachings on mysticism.
Bernard Haring and other prophetic figures were the presence of Jesus among us,
showing that judgements were being passed by an elite,
isolated from the reality of people’s experiences
like the Pharisees and scribes coming down from Jerusalem.
What were called the customs of the elders were rules concerned with external cleanliness
which the humble could not live up to.
Doctrines were put forward as if they came from you
when in fact they were only human regulations;
your commandment of universal love was put aside so that traditions could be upheld.
We thank you that Jesus was in them, calling your Church to listen – all of us –
and understand that nothing which comes to us from outside can make us unclean;
only the things that come from our hearts make us unclean.
Lord, we pray that in our parish liturgies
we will give every opportunity to the marginalized,
– allow those without much education to read
– arrange processions in which the disabled can take part
– ensure that foreigners can understand the homily
– give special welcome to those who cannot receive communion.
In this way we will not honour you only with lip service
but our hearts will be close to you, our worship will be precious to you,
and we will be following your teachings, not mere human regulations.
Lord, your will is that we should live with people very different from us
– those of other religions
– ancestral cultures of Africa, Asia, and Latin America,
– different ethnic groups
– the world of high technology
– the youth culture of today.
Help us not to become like Pharisees and scribes coming to Galilee from Jerusalem,
noticing how others do things differently from us.
Help us to discern what in our culture is merely human regulations
which do not make anyone clean or unclean,
so that we will repent of paying only lip service to the lofty principles we proclaim
and recognise that so much of what we call holy is worthless
and that many of what we call doctrines are only human regulations.
Lord, we thank you that in our time the Bible has become once more the soul of your Church’s theology, enabling us to recognise that many of what we called biblical doctrines were no more than human regulations.
Lord, we thank you for moments of deep prayer
when you showed us clearly that the laws we were breaking
did not make us unclean because they were only human regulations,
that we could go beyond them and find our purity of heart.
*************************************
Thomas O’Loughlin
Introduction to the Celebration
We gather here because Jesus has made us welcome. He has called us, he has chosen us, he desires that we love one another around his table.
This is our great religious gathering: we affirm who we are, what we believe, we ask the Father for our needs, and we thank him for our lives and all our blessings.
So what are the characteristic human qualities with which we should approach God? For many, it is some notion of being ‘clean’, or having observed all the minute rules, having done and said all the correct things connected with religion. Today, Jesus lifts us completely out of that view. In order to be able to stand here in the presence of the Father, we must be people whose lives bring forth good for others, who do not injure others, and who seek to care for others.
Homily Notes
1. This gospel’s message can seem trite to the point of irrelevance. Our society takes three things for granted — indeed, it makes them the basis for much of its thinking about religion in general and about Christian observance in particular. First, active morality is more important than religious ritual. Second, intention is more important than following prescriptions about details: following conscience is the high road to moral integrity. Third, what’s really important in what religious leaders, such as Jesus, have taught is basic human morality: so avoiding murder, theft, and avarice are more important in living a good life than regular prayers or obeying rules on ‘observances’. All that ‘mere ritual’ can be put to one side, so long as we behave morally towards others. There is much truth in all of this — so is today’s gospel simply Jesus’s affirmation of this position?
2. If this is so, then this piece of gospel, good news, is not really good news at all! Moreover, in the early communities where this was preached they were careful about regular prayer, gathering for the Eucharist, and conveying a new style of living — so is this gospel really saying that all that activity was really irrelevant, and that so long as people conscientiously followed a way of respecting others, then the ‘religious bits’ were dispensable? That is how many would read or want to read this gospel: care of others is fine, care of the planet is fine, some spirituality (as a private commodity) is fine. But ‘religion’ with its group observances, its gatherings, and its demands is just old hat! And, according to the way that many people read this gospel, it seems that Jesus agrees.
3. Therefore, this is a very good day to point out just how easy it is to hear ancient scriptures, imagine that one understands them, and then go off with totally the wrong idea. The essence of all fundamentalism is to take ancient writings from another culture, another way of thinking and understanding, and to colonise them so that they mean what we think they mean in our culture. Therefore, preaching today should have two objectives. First, to show the gathering just how easy it is to read a text and take completely the wrong message from it — and, thereby, to show them the dangers of biblical fundamentalism. The second objective is incidental: to show how this gospel still has a key message for us, and how we might get at it.
4. Showing the dangers of fundamentalism is something that has to be done in a number of steps.
Step 1: To show that a ‘simple’, so-called ‘obvious”plain’ reading of the text, leads to a contradiction. Namely: if it is the case that the ‘religious bits’ can be just sidelined in favour of being kind to one’s neighbour, why did the early Christians who first heard this gospel — and were in a far better position to understand it that we are — pay such attention to those very religious bits?
Step 2: If the ‘plain, simple’ reading leads to a contradiction (i.e. ‘it just does not add up’), then are we missing something in today’s gospel? We should note that the Pharisees do not accuse Jesus’s disciples of being bad people, nor do they accuse them of being unjust, or even of lacking in holiness. What they accuse them of being is unclean.
Step 3: We still use in everyday life the notions of being just/unjust (this is a quality of individuals); we also use the notions of being caring / uncaring (again, a quality of individuals); and we even, sometimes use the notion of being ‘holy’ — but we tend to think of it in terms of individuals so we say X or Y is a holy person, but we have difficulty nowadays in thinking of a collectivity as holy as in ‘the holy church of God.’
However, we do not use the notion of clean/ unclean as a category for people.
So to understand today’s gospel, we must first discover what the notion of clean / unclean (alien concepts in our culture) meant in a culture that is very foreign to our own.
Step 4: Clean/unclean are not individual virtues, but social qualities: the real danger of someone doing something unclean is not what it does to the person as an individual, but what it does to the whole group to which the person belongs. This is a very different way of thinking to how we think: the whole group is affected by what we think of as purely private actions. The reason that the Pharisees are worried about what the disciples are doing is not because they are concerned for the souls of the disciples, but because they are concerned for themselves! The impure actions of the disciples is making everyone — who is gathered in the same place as the disciples — unclean!
We can barely understand this type of thinking. Perhaps the nearest we come to it is when there is a flu bug about and people are asked to stay at home, not because it will make them better, but because it will stop it spreading and make the larger group unwell. Uncleanness is like a contagion: the whole group suffers because of the carelessness and lack of group awareness and group care of individuals.
Step 5: Knowing that, how are we to understand this gospel? Jesus does not dismiss the notion of uncleanness, he changes the list of actions by which an individual can damage the whole group, and its ability to stand before God as a holy people. The actions of individuals that damage the whole group, its ability to be the people of God, its ability to stand before God and ask for its needs and the needs of humanity (as we will do in the Prayers of the Faithful) and its ability to reflect God’s love to the world is the list given at the end of the gospel.
Step 6: Each hearer of the gospel gathered today (especially clergy in the aftermath of child sex-abuse scandals within the church in recent years) have to ask how his/her individual actions have not only damaged them as individuals, but have had the effect of making the whole people unclean, unholy, unfit to stand before the world as the Body of Christ.
5. Discovering how easy it is to slip into fundamentalism is something that takes most people by surprise: and it is a lesson we have to learn over and over again. Discovering the ‘deeper’ meaning of the gospel — as opposed to a trite message that suits us — can also be a painful surprise: today is a case in point.
**********************************
Sean Goan: Gospel
As we return to Mark we find ourselves in yet another story of conflict between Jesus and his opponents. Here the Pharisees are reprimanding the followers of Jesus for not engaging in ritual washing before they eat.This is an example of a tradition handed down in Pharisee circles which had come to have the full force of the written Law. Jesus has little time for their legalism and quotes from Isaiah to make his point. This is only lip service to God who does not care about their external observances but who desires a true worship of the heart. A person cannot be made unclean by external factors, eg the failure to observe purely religious ritual; rather we are made unclean by that which comes from within, from our hearts, the source of our moral action.
Reflection
If a survey were to be conducted among churchgoers in which they were asked for a definition of religion it is unlikely that many would come up with the simple answer provided by James. Coming to the help of orphans and widows would be for many a kind of agreeable by-product of religion whereas James places it right at the centre of who we are and what we do. This is surely a message for today when so many people go to such great lengths in their search for wisdom and the knowledge of God. A religion that can be observed at a purely external level has a certain appeal. It is easy to feel we are making progress and that we are better than those who do not measure up. We imagine that by our own efforts we can come close to God. However, Jesus wants no part in such a sham. He is concerned with the heart and a faith that does justice.
******
From the Connections:
THE WORD:
Today’s Gospel returns to Mark’s story of the Christ event with a confrontation that Mark’s first Christian readers knew all too well. A contentious debate raged in the early Church as to whether or not Christians should continue to observe the practices of Judaism. Jesus challenges the scribes’ insistence that faithfulness to ceremonial washings and other rituals constitutes complete faithfulness to the will of God. He scandalizes his hearers by proclaiming “nothing that enters a man from outside can make him impure; that which comes out of him, and only that, constitutes impurity.” It is the good that one does motivated by the spirit of the heart that is important in the eyes of God, not how scrupulously one keeps the laws and rituals mandated by tradition.Through the centuries of Judaism, the scribes had constructed a rigid maze of definitions, admonitions, principles and laws to explain the Pentateuch (summarized in Moses’ eloquent words to the nation of Israel in today’s first reading). As a result, the ethics of religion were often buried under a mountain of rules and taboos. Jesus’ teachings re-focus the canons of Israel on the original covenant based on the wisdom and discernment of the human heart. Such a challenge widens the growing gulf between Jesus and the Jewish establishment.
HOMILY NOTES:
Faith begins with encountering God in our hearts; our faith is expressed in the good that we do and the praise we offer in the depths of our hearts, not simply in words and rituals performed "outside" of ourselves.The kind of human being we are begins in the values of the heart, the place where God dwells within — but the evil we are capable of, the hurt we inflict on others, the degrading of the world that God created also begins “within,” when God is displaced by selfishness, greed, anger, hatred.
In the hurts, indignities and injustices perpetrated against us, what is often worse than the act itself is what the act does do us as persons: we respond with suspicion, cynicism, self-absorption, anger, vengeance. To be a disciple of Jesus is not to let those things “outside” us diminish what we are “inside” ourselves, not to let such anger or vengeance displace the things of God in our hearts but to let God’s presence transform the evil that we have encountered into compassion and forgiveness.
Markings
With the change of seasons, you’ve probably been doing alot of shopping — especially clothes for school and work.So did you buy the right things?
Will you be wearing the right suits in the right colors and the right styles? Have you paid close attention to the labels?
Are you wearing the right shoes, the smartest footwear in the coolest colors?
What about your hair? Is it styled the right way? Will your cut make you fit in with your team, your company, your gang, your circle?
Have you been listening to the right music, reading the right books, seeing the right movies? Can you articulate the right opinions? Know how the political winds are blowing? On board with the accepted positions on the issues?
Is your calendar set — the right parties to go to, the right meetings to attend, the right places to be seen?
Clothes, styles, labels, music, social rituals and beliefs are important to all of us. They mark our identity. Every group of human beings has a tendency to be exclusive; every group wants to know who is on the inside and who is on the outside. So we adopt “identity markers” — visible practices of dress or vocabulary or behavior that serve to distinguish who is inside the group and who is outside.
And nobody wants to be on the outside. We all want to be in, we all want to be a part of the scene, we all want to be on the right side.
So mark well.
The Pharisees in today’s Gospel cherish the “markers” that identify them as part of the Jewish community. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But Jesus teaches that the markers that should identify us as the people of God are “diets” of justice and peace, the cleaning away of hatred and division, tables that are set with places for all, traditions that honor charity and forgiveness. Our identity as disciples is centered in our hearts, in the spirit of humble gratitude and compassion that we lift up to the Father.
[Adapted from “Pharisees Are Us” by John Ortberg, in Living by the Word, published by The Christian Century.]
A. Fr Jude Botelho:
In the first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses exhorts the people to heed the statutes and ordinances of God so that they might inherit the land promised by Yahweh. While advising them to follow the laws and commandments of God, at the same time he warns them against adding or taking away anything from what they have received from God. Today's reading reminds the people that they have to be faithful to the written Law and not add their own interpretations and customs to the Law. In our own experience, we know that often in interpreting the law we apply it as we think best rather than as God wants us to live. We can be observing the letter of the law while missing its spirit.
Little to drink
William Barclay, the Scottish theologian, tells the story about an old rabbi who was in a Roman prison. He was on minimal ration of food and water. It was just enough for him to survive. As time passed, the rabbi grew weaker and weaker. Finally, it was necessary to call a doctor. The old man's problem was diagnosed as dehydration. The doctor's report confused the prison officials. They couldn't understand how the rabbi could be dehydrated. Although his daily ration of water was minimal, it was adequate. The guards were told to watch the old man closely to see what he was doing with his water. It was then that the mystery was solved. The guards discovered that the rabbi was using almost all his water to perform religious ritual washings before he prayed and before he ate. As a result, he had little water left to drink.
Mark Link in 'Sunday Homilies'
In today's Gospel, we find the Pharisees attacking Jesus by finding fault with the behaviour of his disciples. They notice that the disciples were eating without washing their hands as the practice of the law demanded, and so they ask Jesus: "Why do your disciples not live according to the traditions of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" Around that time there arose on the part of many Jews the desire to imitate the ritual holiness of their priests. For example, according to the written law, ritual washing was required of all priests before they entered the temple sanctuary. Its purpose was to wash all uncleanliness so that they could worship God more worthily. Gradually the people began to imitate the priests and wash their hands before praying. In a similar way, the washing before meals evolved. By the time of Jesus the Jews observed these oral traditions just as minutely as they did the written laws of the Torah. Perhaps the idea behind all these observances was noble; it was to make religion permeate every action of daily life. But in the course of doing this, religion degenerated into an activity of performing rituals. Observance of these rituals was equated with pleasing God and they became a yardstick of measuring one's own holiness and a criterion of judging others as well. God was out of the picture and the observances became an end in themselves. Rightly, Isaiah said: "This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me."
Lip Service
A story is told of a Moslem who, while pursuing a man with an upraised knife to kill him, heard the muezzin's call to prayer from the minaret. He stopped, extended his prayer rug, said his prescribed prayers, and then continued his original pursuit after the man he wished to kill. He had said his prayers now he could go about his sordid business. Unfortunately, changing what has to be changed, the same could be observed of some Christians, who while pursuing their sinful activities, may stop to attend church services before getting back to their same old sinful pursuits.
Anonymous
Do we stand for God?
Centuries ago in one of the Egyptian monasteries, a man came and asked to be admitted. The abbot told him that the chief rule was obedience, and the man promised to be patient on all occasions, even under excessive provocation. It chanced that the abbot was holding a dried-up willow stick in his hands; he forthwith fixed the dead stick into the earth and told the newcomer to water it until, against all rules of nature, it should once again become green. Obediently the new monk walked two miles every day to the river Nile to bring a vessel of water on his shoulders and water the dry stick. A year passed by and he was still faithful to his task, though very weary. Another year and still he toiled on. Well into the third year he was still trudging to the river and back, still watering the stick, when suddenly it burst into life. -The green bush alive today is a living witness to the mighty virtues of obedience and faith.
F. H. Drinkwater in 'Quotes and Anecdotes'
The Wrongs of Rites
A disciple once boasted about the effectiveness of his prayers and pilgrimages. His Guru advised him to take a bitter gourd along with him on his pilgrimage to place at every altar, to dip into every holy river and to be blessed at every shrine. When the disciple returned, the Guru reverently conducted a liturgy with the bitter gourd, cut it into pieces, and distributed it as sacramental food. Tasting it he declared, "Isn’t it surprising that all the prayers, pujas and pilgrimages, have not reduced the bitterness of this gourd?" Many people spend much time discussing rectitude of rituals and reinforcement of rites. Isn't it time to stop fighting about rites and rituals and begin fighting for the rights of those orphans and widows mentioned in the Scripture?
Francis Gonsalves in 'Sunday Seeds for Daily Deeds'
Their heart is not in it…
A man died recently and went to heaven. He was very happy up there, as he wandered about, exploring the place. One Sunday morning he bumped into Jesus (it could happen up there, just as sure as down here!). Jesus called him over to show him something. He opened a sort of trap door in the floor of heaven, so that the man could look through, and see even as far as the earth below. Eventually, Jesus got to focus his attention on a church, his own local church at home, where there was a full congregation at Mass. The man watched for a while, and then something began to puzzle him. He could see the priest moving his lips, and turning over the pages. He could see the choir holding their hymnals, and the organist thumping the keyboards. But he couldn't hear a sound. It was total silence. Thinking that the amplification system in heaven had broken down, he turned to Jesus for an explanation. Jesus looked at him in surprise. "Didn't anybody ever tell you? We have a rule here that if they don't do those things down there with their hearts, we don't hear them up here at all!"
Jack McArdle in 'And that’s the Gospel truth!'
Little to drink
William Barclay, the Scottish theologian, tells the story about an old rabbi who was in a Roman prison. He was on minimal ration of food and water. It was just enough for him to survive. As time passed, the rabbi grew weaker and weaker. Finally, it was necessary to call a doctor. The old man's problem was diagnosed as dehydration. The doctor's report confused the prison officials. They couldn't understand how the rabbi could be dehydrated. Although his daily ration of water was minimal, it was adequate. The guards were told to watch the old man closely to see what he was doing with his water. It was then that the mystery was solved. The guards discovered that the rabbi was using almost all his water to perform religious ritual washings before he prayed and before he ate. As a result, he had little water left to drink.
Mark Link in 'Sunday Homilies'
In today's Gospel, we find the Pharisees attacking Jesus by finding fault with the behaviour of his disciples. They notice that the disciples were eating without washing their hands as the practice of the law demanded, and so they ask Jesus: "Why do your disciples not live according to the traditions of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" Around that time there arose on the part of many Jews the desire to imitate the ritual holiness of their priests. For example, according to the written law, ritual washing was required of all priests before they entered the temple sanctuary. Its purpose was to wash all uncleanliness so that they could worship God more worthily. Gradually the people began to imitate the priests and wash their hands before praying. In a similar way, the washing before meals evolved. By the time of Jesus the Jews observed these oral traditions just as minutely as they did the written laws of the Torah. Perhaps the idea behind all these observances was noble; it was to make religion permeate every action of daily life. But in the course of doing this, religion degenerated into an activity of performing rituals. Observance of these rituals was equated with pleasing God and they became a yardstick of measuring one's own holiness and a criterion of judging others as well. God was out of the picture and the observances became an end in themselves. Rightly, Isaiah said: "This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me."
Lip Service
A story is told of a Moslem who, while pursuing a man with an upraised knife to kill him, heard the muezzin's call to prayer from the minaret. He stopped, extended his prayer rug, said his prescribed prayers, and then continued his original pursuit after the man he wished to kill. He had said his prayers now he could go about his sordid business. Unfortunately, changing what has to be changed, the same could be observed of some Christians, who while pursuing their sinful activities, may stop to attend church services before getting back to their same old sinful pursuits.
Anonymous
Do we stand for God?
Centuries ago in one of the Egyptian monasteries, a man came and asked to be admitted. The abbot told him that the chief rule was obedience, and the man promised to be patient on all occasions, even under excessive provocation. It chanced that the abbot was holding a dried-up willow stick in his hands; he forthwith fixed the dead stick into the earth and told the newcomer to water it until, against all rules of nature, it should once again become green. Obediently the new monk walked two miles every day to the river Nile to bring a vessel of water on his shoulders and water the dry stick. A year passed by and he was still faithful to his task, though very weary. Another year and still he toiled on. Well into the third year he was still trudging to the river and back, still watering the stick, when suddenly it burst into life. -The green bush alive today is a living witness to the mighty virtues of obedience and faith.
F. H. Drinkwater in 'Quotes and Anecdotes'
The Wrongs of Rites
A disciple once boasted about the effectiveness of his prayers and pilgrimages. His Guru advised him to take a bitter gourd along with him on his pilgrimage to place at every altar, to dip into every holy river and to be blessed at every shrine. When the disciple returned, the Guru reverently conducted a liturgy with the bitter gourd, cut it into pieces, and distributed it as sacramental food. Tasting it he declared, "Isn’t it surprising that all the prayers, pujas and pilgrimages, have not reduced the bitterness of this gourd?" Many people spend much time discussing rectitude of rituals and reinforcement of rites. Isn't it time to stop fighting about rites and rituals and begin fighting for the rights of those orphans and widows mentioned in the Scripture?
Francis Gonsalves in 'Sunday Seeds for Daily Deeds'
Their heart is not in it…
A man died recently and went to heaven. He was very happy up there, as he wandered about, exploring the place. One Sunday morning he bumped into Jesus (it could happen up there, just as sure as down here!). Jesus called him over to show him something. He opened a sort of trap door in the floor of heaven, so that the man could look through, and see even as far as the earth below. Eventually, Jesus got to focus his attention on a church, his own local church at home, where there was a full congregation at Mass. The man watched for a while, and then something began to puzzle him. He could see the priest moving his lips, and turning over the pages. He could see the choir holding their hymnals, and the organist thumping the keyboards. But he couldn't hear a sound. It was total silence. Thinking that the amplification system in heaven had broken down, he turned to Jesus for an explanation. Jesus looked at him in surprise. "Didn't anybody ever tell you? We have a rule here that if they don't do those things down there with their hearts, we don't hear them up here at all!"
Jack McArdle in 'And that’s the Gospel truth!'
*****
B. From Fr. Tony Kadavil's Collection:
1. Ritual
washing using drinking water:
William Barclay in The
Daily Study Bible tells the
story of an old Jewish rabbi in the Roman prison diagnosed with acute dehydration
which would have led to
his death. The prison guards insisted that
the rabbi was given
his quota of drinking
water. So the prison doctor
and the officer
in charge instructed the guards
to watch the rabbi and ascertain what he was doing with his ration of water. They were shocked to find that the rabbi was using almost all his water for traditional
ritual washing before prayer and meals.
Today’s gospel tells us how
the tradition-addicted Pharisees
started questioning Jesus when his
disciples omitted the ritual washing of hands in public before a meal.
Barclay’s second story is about a Muslim pursuing an enemy to kill him. In the midst of the pursuit the Azan, or public call to prayer, sounded. Instantly the Muslim got off his horse, unrolled his prayer mat, knelt down and prayed the required prayers as fast as he could. Then he leaped back on his horse to pursue his enemy in order to kill him. Jesus opposes this type of legalism in the Jewish religion in today’s gospel.
3) "Put your
hand in Jesus'
hand":
For 30 years
Mother Teresa worked
in the slums of Calcutta, India. She worked among
the most forsaken people on earth. You
and I would recoil from
most of the
people that she
touched every day –
the dispossessed, the downtrodden, the diseased, the desperate.
And yet, everybody who met Mother Teresa remarked on her warm smile. How, after 30 years of working in conditions like that did
she keep a warm
smile on her
face? Well, it's interesting. She said
that at age
18 she left Yugoslavia to become a
Christian servant. She said, "When I
was leaving home,
my mother told me something beautiful and
very strange. She said, 'You go
put your hand in Jesus hand and walk along with him.'" And was the secret of Mother Teresa's life ever
after. (Rev. King Duncan). Most of us
here have good jobs. And we live in nice homes, and we
have easy situations.
But we don't have the
warm smile on
our faces that
this little nun, working
in the most desperate situation imaginable, had on her face. What's the difference? It maybe that we've never put our hand in Jesus' hand. It
may be that we have
Him only on our lips.
********
C. From Sermons.com
All that stopped in the next instant as the Queen, Victoria, silently took her finger bowl in her two hands, lifted it, and drank its contents! A moment later 500 surprised British ladies and gentlemen simultaneously drank the contents of their own fingerbowls.
It was "against the rules" to drink from a fingerbowl, but on that particular evening Victoria changed the rules---because she was, after all, the Queen. It is "against the rules" not to wash your hands before you eat and on that the Pharisees called the hand of the disciples who follow Jesus. But Jesus recognizes their hypocrisy and he quotes from Isaiah, "These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me."
Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com. Thanks to Winfield Casey Jones for ths story
The only way Christ can use any of us is when we are driven by a great passion, when we feel or hear his voice within our heart showing us a great cause that needs to be championed. Nothing is accomplished in this world by people who have no passion. That's one reason we need God in our hearts as well as on our lips.
In Luke 7:32, Jesus observed that this generation is like school children who pipe and their friends won't dance, who wail and their chums won't cry. "There is no pleasing you!" We simply find something wrong with everything.
6) Tradition Is a Powerful Thing
8) The Shoeshine Boy
2) How many of you had "night lights" as a kid?
Can you remember your "night light?" Do any of you still have your "night light?"
What is it about the night that cuts us all down to size? Whatever you felt in the day--loneliness, lostness, despair-is magnified in the night. Thank God for "night lights" -those calming, gleaming points of brightness in darkened rooms that helped muzzle monsters and banish the bodysnatchers.
All you kids present-I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Adults still use "night lights." Only we rationalize them as guidance systems to the bathroom, or emergency lighting systems. Basically though, we are all still afraid of the dark.
Fear of the dark isn't just some childish weakness. It is a genetically ingrained reaction, programmed into our earliest ancestors who struggled to stay alive when the nocturnal predators came out to hunt. Children might fear imaginary monsters, but there are enough real life things that go bump in the night to encourage us to keep a dark-defying light on throughout the wee, small hours...
___________________
3) Melting Mountains of Ice
William Lloyd Garrison was the greatest abolitionist this country has ever known. He was a publisher of a newspaper called the Liberator, an antislavery publication. Garrison was an angry man, angry with indignation caused by the unbelievably inhumane treatment many of the slaves experienced. He hated slavery with everything that was in him. One day one of his best friends, Samuel May, tried to calm him down. He said to Garrison, "Oh, my friend, try to moderate your indignation and keep more cool. Why, you are all on fire." Garrison replied, "Brother May, I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice around me to melt." Well, the only way any of us can melt mountains of ice is to be on fire.
The only way Christ can use any of us is when we are driven by a great passion, when we feel or hear his voice within our heart showing us a great cause that needs to be championed. Nothing is accomplished in this world by people who have no passion. That's one reason we need God in our hearts as well as on our lips.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
____________________________________
4) A Person of Good Heart or Excellent Habits
Rev. David Chadwell posed a rather interesting question: Which would you prefer for a next-door neighbor: a person of excellent habits or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a good friend: a person of excellent habits, or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a husband or a wife: a person of excellent habits, or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a child: a child with excellent habits, or a child with a good heart?
Rev. David Chadwell posed a rather interesting question: Which would you prefer for a next-door neighbor: a person of excellent habits or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a good friend: a person of excellent habits, or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a husband or a wife: a person of excellent habits, or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a child: a child with excellent habits, or a child with a good heart?
It is wonderful to have a neighbor who conscientiously cares for his property while respecting your property. It is wonderful to have a friend who always treats you with consideration. It is wonderful to be married to a husband who always is thoughtful and courteous, or to a wife who always is gracious in her comments and deeds. It is wonderful to have a son or daughter who shows respect and uses good manners.
As wonderful as those situations are, none of them compare to having a neighbor, a friend, a husband, a wife, a son, or a daughter with a good heart.
When you discuss good behavior, you are discussing the quality of a person's self-control. When you discuss a good heart, you are discussing the quality of the person.
This is the focus of today's Scripture...
___________________
5) Seeing Only the Smoke, Never the Fire
John Wesley pointed out that every gift God gives man is quickly sullied by human hands. He said every revival comes with defects. So he'd pray, "Lord, send revival without the defects." But then he told the Lord, "If you won't do it, then send the revival with the defects."
Pharisees only see the smoke, never the fire. They complain about defects, never seeing the revival. Negative, critical persons, they are judgmental.
Stephen M. Crotts, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing
_____________________
Years ago Harry Emerson Fosdick told about a church in Denmark where the worshipers bowed regularly before a certain spot on the wall. They had been doing that for three centuries -- bowing at that one spot in the sanctuary. Nobody could remember why. One day in renovating the church, they removed some of the whitewash on the walls. At the exact spot where the people bowed they found the image of the Madonna under the whitewash. People had become so accustomed to bowing before that image that even after it was covered up for three centuries, people still bowed.
Tradition is a powerful thing. The Pharisees had learned to substitute tradition, custom, habit for the presence of the living God. Traditionalism rears its head in many ways, in many times and in many places.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
_______________________
7) Fault-Finding
Shakespeare said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? I'm sure it would. You see, the truth is that the thing is what it is, not what someone calls it. Names are assigned to us, based on our outward circumstances by ourselves and other people. "Sinner, Failure, Stupid, Dummy, Unclean" all are names which label us. But what we are called, either by others or by ourselves does not determine who we are. It might speak of those external circumstances, but it might be wholly inaccurate. You see, a failure is not someone who fails. In reality, the people who fail the most are the ones who succeed. You only get to success by taking risks and risk-taking brings many failures along the way. A failure is someone who simply doesn't try. No, names do not determine who you are. You are who you are on the inside.
So, the first important lesson is that we must cultivate the inner person.
The inner person is the person who counts. The apostle Paul desired that we
be strengthened in the inner man.
It boils down to relationship. We are only as strong as our personal relationship with Christ.
J. David Hoke, The Inside Story, Mark 7:14-23.
_________________
A certain downtown businessman became fond of the little boy who shined his shoes every day. He did such a good job that one day the businessman asked him, "Son, how come you are so conscientious about your work?" The boy felt complimented. He looked up to the man, and said, "Mister, I'm a Christian and I try to shine every pair of shoes as if Jesus Christ were wearing them."
The businessman saw something genuine in the shoeshine boy. Soon after that he began reading his Bible. When he decided to be a Christian himself, he credited his decision to the little boy who shined every pair of shoes "as if Jesus Christ were wearing them." That's a blessing.
Charles R. Leary, Mission Ready!, CSS Publishing Company.
___________________
9) Which Flowers Are Real?
The queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, and one day she put him to the test. She brought artificial flowers so perfectly formed that no human eye could detect them from real flowers. She put them in a vase on Solomon's table, in his throne room next to his flowers. As he came in, the queen of Sheba is reported to have said, "Solomon, you are the wisest man in the world. Tell me without touching these flowers, which are real and which are artificial." It is said that Solomon studied the flowers for a long time and spoke nothing, until finally he said, "Open the windows and let the bees come in."
There are ways to tell the artificial from the real-let the bees come in; they will know where the real is. If we live with the authentic Jesus long enough, we will recognize the artificial when we see it.
Brooks Ramsey, When Religion Becomes Real
10) Amazing family tradition:
Isaac Ole had heard from his grandma stories of an amazing family tradition in his family. It seems that his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all been able to walk on water on their 21st birthday. On that day, they'd walk across the lake to the boat club for their first legal drink. So when Isaac’s 21st birthday came around, he and his pal Sven took a boat out to the middle of the lake. Ole stepped out of the boat and nearly drowned! Sven just managed to pull him to safety. Furious and confused, Ole went to see his grandmother. "Grandma," he asked," it's my 21st birthday, so why can't I walk across the lake like my father, his father, and his father before him?" Granny looked into Ole's eyes with a broad smile and said, "Because your father, grandfather and great-grandfather were born in January when the lake was frozen and you were born in hot July!"
11) The Jewish tradition:
Late in the evening, the young Jew knocked at the door and asked as an elderly man opened the door. "Sir, what time is it?" The old Jew just stared at him and did not answer. “Sir, forgive me for disturbing you at this time,” said the young Jew, “but I really want to know what time it is. I have to find a place to sleep.” The old Jew said, “Son, the inn on the next street is the only one in this small city. I don't know you, so you must be a stranger. If I answer you now, according to our Jewish tradition, I must invite you to my home. You're handsome and I have a beautiful daughter. You will both fall in love and you'll want to get married. And tell me, why would I want a son-in-law who can't even afford a watch?”
Additional Anecdotes:
The only way Christ can use any of us is when we are driven by a great passion, when we feel or hear his voice within our heart showing us a great cause that needs to be championed. Nothing is accomplished in this world by people who have no passion. That's one reason we need God in our hearts as well as on our lips.
Tradition is a powerful thing. The Pharisees had learned to substitute tradition, custom, habit for the presence of the living God. Traditionalism rears its head in many ways, in many times and in many places.
11) Pursuit
of enemy not hindered by prayer:
12) "Put your hand in Jesus' hand":
14) The Jewish tradition:
15) Who is the Pharisee?
Rev. David Chadwell posed a rather
interesting question: Which would you prefer for a next-door neighbor: a person
of excellent habits or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a
good friend: a person of excellent habits, or a person with a good heart? Which
would you prefer for a husband or a wife: a person of excellent habits, or a
person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a child: a child with
excellent habits, or a child with a good heart?
It is wonderful to have a neighbor who
conscientiously cares for his property while respecting your property. It is
wonderful to have a friend who always treats you with consideration. It is
wonderful to be married to a husband who always is thoughtful and courteous, or
to a wife who always is gracious in her comments and deeds. It is wonderful to
have a son or daughter who shows respect and uses good manners.
As wonderful as those situations are, none
of them compare to having a neighbor, a friend, a husband, a wife, a son, or a
daughter with a good heart.
When you discuss good behavior, you are
discussing the quality of a person's self-control. When you discuss a good
heart, you are discussing the quality of the person.
This is the focus of today's Scripture...
_______________________
2)
How many of you had
"night lights" as a kid?
Can you remember your "night
light?" Do any of you still have your "night light?"
What is it about the night that cuts us all
down to size? Whatever you felt in the day--loneliness, lostness, despair-is
magnified in the night. Thank God for "night lights" -those calming,
gleaming points of brightness in darkened rooms that helped muzzle monsters and
banish the bodysnatchers.
All you kids present-I'm going to let you
in on a little secret. Adults still use "night lights." Only we
rationalize them as guidance systems to the bathroom, or emergency lighting
systems. Basically though, we are all still afraid of the dark.
Fear of the dark isn't just some childish
weakness. It is a genetically ingrained reaction, programmed into our earliest
ancestors who struggled to stay alive when the nocturnal predators came out to
hunt. Children might fear imaginary monsters, but there are enough real life
things that go bump in the night to encourage us to keep a dark-defying light
on throughout the wee, small hours...
___________________
3)
Melting Mountains of Ice
William Lloyd Garrison was the greatest abolitionist
this country has ever known. He was a publisher of a newspaper called the
Liberator, an antislavery publication. Garrison was an angry man, angry with
indignation caused by the unbelievably inhumane treatment many of the slaves
experienced. He hated slavery with everything that was in him. One day one of
his best friends, Samuel May, tried to calm him down. He said to Garrison,
"Oh, my friend, try to moderate your indignation and keep more cool. Why,
you are all on fire." Garrison replied, "Brother May, I have need to
be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice around me to melt." Well, the
only way any of us can melt mountains of ice is to be on fire.
The only way Christ can use any of us is when we are driven by a great passion, when we feel or hear his voice within our heart showing us a great cause that needs to be championed. Nothing is accomplished in this world by people who have no passion. That's one reason we need God in our hearts as well as on our lips.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
____________________________________
4)
Lip Service
According to the story, Queen Victoria was
once at a diplomatic reception in London. The guest of honor was an African
chieftain. All went well during the meal until, at the end, finger bowls were
served. The guest of honor had never seen a British finger bowl, and no one had
thought to brief him beforehand about its purpose. So he took the finger bowl
in his two hands, lifted it to his mouth, and drank its contents--down to the
very last drop!
For an instant there was breathless silence
among the British upper crust and then they began to whisper to one another.
All that stopped in the next instant as the
Queen, Victoria, silently took her finger bowl in her two hands, lifted it, and
drank its contents! A moment later 500 surprised British ladies and gentlemen
simultaneously drank the contents of their own fingerbowls.
It was "against the rules" to
drink from a fingerbowl, but on that particular evening Victoria changed the
rules---because she was, after all, the Queen. It is "against the
rules" not to wash your hands before you eat and on that the Pharisees
called the hand of the disciples who follow Jesus. But Jesus recognizes their
hypocrisy and he quotes from Isaiah, "These people honor me with their
lips but their hearts are far from me."
Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com. Thanks to
Winfield Casey Jones for this story.
___________________
5)
Seeing Only the Smoke,
Never the Fire
In Luke 7:32, Jesus observed that this
generation is like school children who pipe and their friends won't dance, who
wail and their chums won't cry. "There is no pleasing you!" We simply
find something wrong with everything.
John Wesley pointed out that every gift God
gives man is quickly sullied by human hands. He said every revival comes with
defects. So he'd pray, "Lord, send revival without the defects." But
then he told the Lord, "If you won't do it, then send the revival with the
defects."
Pharisees only see the smoke, never the
fire. They complain about defects, never seeing the revival. Negative, critical
persons, they are judgmental.
Stephen M. Crotts, Sermons for Sundays
after Pentecost, CSS Publishing
_____________________
6)
Tradition Is a Powerful
Thing
Years ago Harry Emerson Fosdick told about
a church in Denmark where the worshipers bowed regularly before a certain spot
on the wall. They had been doing that for three centuries -- bowing at that one
spot in the sanctuary. Nobody could remember why. One day in renovating the
church, they removed some of the whitewash on the walls. At the exact spot
where the people bowed they found the image of the Madonna under the whitewash.
People had become so accustomed to bowing before that image that even after it
was covered up for three centuries, people still bowed.
Tradition is a powerful thing. The Pharisees had learned to substitute tradition, custom, habit for the presence of the living God. Traditionalism rears its head in many ways, in many times and in many places.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons,
www.Sermons.com
_______________________
7)
Fault-Finding
Shakespeare said, "What's in a name?
That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." Would
a rose by any other name smell as sweet? I'm sure it would. You see, the truth
is that the thing is what it is, not what someone calls it. Names are assigned
to us, based on our outward circumstances by ourselves and other people.
"Sinner, Failure, Stupid, Dummy, Unclean" all are names which label
us. But what we are called, either by others or by ourselves does not determine
who we are. It might speak of those external circumstances, but it might be
wholly inaccurate. You see, a failure is not someone who fails. In reality, the
people who fail the most are the ones who succeed. You only get to success by
taking risks and risk-taking brings many failures along the way. A failure is
someone who simply doesn't try. No, names do not determine who you are. You are
who you are on the inside.
So, the first important lesson is that we
must cultivate the inner person.
The inner person is the person who counts.
The apostle Paul desired that we
be strengthened in the inner man.
It boils down to relationship. We are only
as strong as our personal relationship with Christ.
J. David Hoke, The Inside Story, Mark
7:14-23.
_________________
8)
The Shoeshine Boy
A certain downtown businessman became fond
of the little boy who shined his shoes every day. He did such a good job that
one day the businessman asked him, "Son, how come you are so conscientious
about your work?" The boy felt complimented. He looked up to the man, and
said, "Mister, I'm a Christian and I try to shine every pair of shoes as
if Jesus Christ were wearing them."
The businessman saw something genuine in
the shoeshine boy. Soon after that he began reading his Bible. When he decided
to be a Christian himself, he credited his decision to the little boy who
shined every pair of shoes "as if Jesus Christ were wearing them."
That's a blessing.
Charles R. Leary, Mission Ready!, CSS
Publishing Company.
___________________
9)
Which Flowers Are Real?
The queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon,
and one day she put him to the test. She brought artificial flowers so
perfectly formed that no human eye could detect them from real flowers. She put
them in a vase on Solomon's table, in his throne room next to his flowers. As
he came in, the queen of Sheba is reported to have said, "Solomon, you are
the wisest man in the world. Tell me without touching these flowers, which are
real and which are artificial." It is said that Solomon studied the
flowers for a long time and spoke nothing, until finally he said, "Open
the windows and let the bees come in."
There are ways to tell the artificial from
the real-let the bees come in; they will know where the real is. If we live
with the authentic Jesus long enough, we will recognize the artificial when we
see it.
Brooks Ramsey,
When Religion Becomes Real
10) Ritual washing using drinking-water:
William Barclay in The Daily Study Bible tells the story of an
old
Jewish rabbi in
the Roman prison diagnosed with acute dehydration which would have led to his death. The prison guards insisted that
the rabbi was given his quota of
drinking
water. So the
prison doctor and the
officer in charge instructed the guards to watch the rabbi and ascertain what he was doing with his ration
of water. They were
shocked to find that the rabbi was using almost all his water for traditional ritual washing before prayer
and
meals. Today’s gospel tells us how
the tradition-addicted Pharisees started questioning Jesus when his disciples omitted the ritual washing of hands in public before a meal.
Barclay’s second story is about
a
Muslim pursuing an enemy to
kill him. In the
midst of the pursuit the Azan, or public call to prayer, sounded. Instantly the Muslim got
off his horse, unrolled his prayer mat,
knelt
down and prayed the required prayers as fast as he could. Then he leaped back on his horse to pursue his enemy in order to kill him. Jesus opposes this type of
legalism in the Jewish religion in today’s gospel.
For 30 years Mother Teresa worked in
the slums of Calcutta, India. She worked among the most forsaken people on earth. You and
I would recoil from most of
the people that she touched every day –
the dispossessed, the downtrodden, the diseased, the desperate. And yet, everybody who met Mother Teresa remarked on her warm smile. How, after 30 years of working in conditions like that did she keep a warm smile on
her
face? Well, it's interesting. She said that at age 18
she left Yugoslavia to become a
Christian servant. She said, "When
I was leaving home,
my mother told me something beautiful and very strange. She said, 'You go
put your hand in Jesus hand and walk along with him.'"
And was the secret of Mother Teresa's life ever after. (Rev. King Duncan). Most of us here
have good jobs. And we
live in nice homes, and we have easy situations. But we
don't have the
warm
smile on
our
faces that this little
nun, working
in the most desperate situation imaginable, had on her face. What's the difference? It may be that
we've never put our hand in
Jesus hand. It may be that
we have Him only on our lips.
13) Amazing family tradition:
Isaac Ole had
heard from his grandma stories of an amazing family tradition in his family.
It seems that
his father,
grandfather and great-grandfather had all been able
to walk
on water on their 21st birthday. On that
day, they'd walk
across the lake
to the
boat club for their first legal
drink. So when Isaac’s 21st birthday came around, he and
his pal
Sven took a boat out to the middle of the lake. Ole stepped out of
the boat and nearly drowned! Sven just managed to
pull
him
to safety. Furious and
confused, Ole went to see his grandmother. "Grandma," he asked," it's my 21st birthday, so why can't I walk
across the lake
like my father,
his father,
and
his father before him?"
Granny
looked into Ole's eyes with a broad smile and said, "Because your father, grandfather and great-grandfather were born in January
when the lake was frozen and you were born in hot July!"
Late in the evening, the young Jew knocked at the door and asked as an elderly man
opened the door. "Sir, what time is it?" The old Jew just stared at him and did not
answer. “Sir, forgive
me
for disturbing you at this time,” said the young Jew, “but I really want to know what time it is. I have
to find a place to sleep.” The old Jew said, “Son, the inn on the next street is the only one in this small city. I don't know you, so you must be a stranger. If I answer you
now, according to our Jewish tradition, I
must invite
you
to
my home. You're
handsome and I have a
beautiful daughter. You will both
fall
in love and you'll
want to get married. And tell
me,
why
would I want a son-in-law who can't even afford a watch?”
Father O'Malley was going through the
mail
one
day after
his powerful sermon on the
Pharisaic life of some of his parishioners on the previous Sunday. Drawing a single sheet of
paper from an
envelope, he
found written on
it just one word: "FOOL."
The next Sunday at
Mass, he announced, "I have known
many
people who
have written letters and forgot to sign their names. But this week I received a letter from someone who signed his name and
forgot to write a letter."
26 Additional anecdotes: From Fr. Tony Kadavil:
1) Bowing tradition: Years ago, Harry
Emerson Fosdick told about a Church in Denmark where the worshipers bowed
regularly before a certain spot on the wall. They had been doing that for three
centuries — bowing at that one spot in the sanctuary. Nobody could remember
why. One day in renovating the church, they removed some of the whitewash on
the walls. At the exact spot where the people bowed they found the image of the
Madonna under the whitewash. People had become so accustomed to bowing before
that image that even after it was covered up for three centuries, people still
bowed. Tradition is a powerful thing. The Pharisees had learned to substitute
tradition, custom, habit for the presence of the living God. Jaroslav Pelikan
once said, “Tradition is the living Faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the
dead faith of the living.” Traditionalism rears its head in many ways, in many
times and in many places.
2) We are being watched. In many cities, we will get
a ticket for speeding by mail, because photo radar vans sit beneath freeway
underpasses snapping our picture as we speed by and the gun records our speed
while the camera focuses on our license plate. Video cameras are popping
up everywhere, like virtual watching eyes. School districts are
installing cameras in school buses to document for unbelieving parents how
their children behave. YMCAs have mounted security cameras everywhere.
Banks and businesses monitor the movements of suspected criminals and
shop-lifters. With Webcams positioned strategically throughout the
child-care center, parents can log on to the Internet to see what’s happening
with their babies. Buzzing along benignly through clear American skies,
the Recon Spy Plane has a hidden, remote-controlled camera that can be
activated from up to 1,000 feet away. All these are meant to force
citizens to behave well. But we conveniently forget the truth that God
has an all-seeing “Holycam” perched inside our souls enabling Him to see what
is in our hearts and minds. We may get away with appearance-based virtual
morality in society, fooling civil authorities, friends, spouse or children.
But Jesus gives us a strong warning in today’s Gospel: “Nothing that
enters from outside can defile a person; but the things that come out from
within are what defile” (Mark 7:15). Jesus is cautioning us not to be
like some Pharisees who passed themselves off as pious, always performing the
correct rites and keeping tradition-based observances, but whose inner lives
were polluted with the stench of the graveyard.
3) Reluctant to break the Sabbath law: Dr.
Laura Schlessinger, a psychologist, is appalled by the culture of moral
relativism that has pervaded our society. In her book, How Could You Do That?
Dr. Laura tells of a call from a young woman who was living with her fiancé.
The young woman’s future mother-in-law was insisting that the woman and her son
move closer to her home. What was the problem with that? The young woman
claimed to be an Orthodox Jew, and she complained that if she moved closer to
her future mother-in-law’s home, then she would be too far away from the
synagogue. Instead of walking to Sabbath services, she would then have to
drive, which would be breaking the Sabbath law. Dr. Laura couldn’t get the
young woman to understand the inconsistency between observing one tenet of her
faith–honoring the Sabbath–but not caring if she violated another–the
prohibition against living with her fiancé out of wedlock. It’s not unusual for
people to espouse one thing and to do something entirely different. [Schlessinger,
Dr. Laura. How Could You Do That?! (New York: HarperPerennial, 1996),
pp. 186-187.]
4) Move Christ from our lips to our hearts: In
1974, the top college basketball player in the country was a young man by the
name of Bill Walton. At six foot eleven, he dominated college basketball. He
took his team, UCLA, to their third consecutive NCAA championship, and in his
senior year went on to the NBA. Bill had some adjustments to make in the NBA,
and he didn’t make them very well. Then abruptly he left the game. He said his
heart was no longer in his playing. After some time went by, Bill Walton came
back. This time his heart was in his game, and he played like it. He led the
Portland Trailblazers to their first NBA championship. Then he moved on to the
Boston Celtics. Now he’s a television basketball announcer. It makes all the
difference in the world if your heart is in what you’re doing! A lot of us are
trying to live our lives with our hearts in nothing or, we should say, with
nothing in our hearts. We have Christ on our lips, but He’s never made that
journey further down. That’s why we are bored. How do we move Christ from
our lips to our hearts? That is the question which today’s Gospel asks us.
5) The world needs people who are on fire for Christ:
William Lloyd Garrison was the greatest Abolitionist this country has ever
known. He was a publisher of a newspaper called The Liberator, an
antislavery publication. Garrison was an angry man, angry with indignation
caused by the unbelievably inhumane treatment many of the slaves experienced.
He hated slavery with everything that was in him. One day one of his best
friends, Samuel May, tried to calm him down. He said to Garrison, “Oh, my
friend, try to moderate your indignation and keep more cool. Why, you are all
on fire.” Garrison replied, “Brother May, I have need to be all on fire, for I
have mountains of ice around me to melt.” Well, the only way any of us can melt
mountains of ice is to be on fire. The only way Christ can use any of us is
when we are driven by a great passion, when we feel or hear his voice within
our heart showing us a great cause that needs to be championed. Nothing is
accomplished in this world by people who have no passion. They follow rituals
and traditions without getting converted and renewed. That’s one reason
we need God in our hearts as well as on our lips.
6) Princess Diana versus Mother Teresa: Princes Diana
captured the imagination of the world. When she married in 1981 (700
million watched it in TV), and when she met with a tragic death on August 31,
1997 her funeral was watched by 2.5 billion people on TV. So, it would not be
surprising if, on August 31, 2018 media made mention of the anniversary of her
passing. The media may recall that someone else who died twenty-one years ago,
a little nun in Calcutta known to the world as Mother Teresa. It has been said
that Mother Teresa chose the wrong week to die, overshadowed by the death of
the young princess. But maybe that’s the way it should be. Nothing could better
reflect how warped the values of the world are. Mother Teresa wasn’t
accompanied by a billionaire playboy when she passed from this life to the
celestial kingdom. She wasn’t being driven in a high-speed luxury car. She
lived and died serving the least and the lowest. She lived and died glorifying
God and serving her neighbor. There’s nothing wrong with little girls aspiring
to grow up to be princesses. How much better, though, if all of us aspired to
be more like Mother Teresa! There’s nothing wrong with pomp and circumstance.
There’s even nothing wrong with ceremonies linked to the washing of hands, even
though doctors say a little dirt is good for you, unless the ceremony of
washing hands causes you to look down on those who don’t observe such
ceremonies, or unless you have clean hands but an impure heart.
7) The Fall: In Albert Camus’
novel The Fall, the central figure is a nameless lawyer who tells
his story to a stranger he meets in a Dutch bar. The anonymous lawyer relates
how he had always prided himself on being a selfless servant of humanity, a man
of noble virtue and generosity. But then one dark rainy midnight, something
happened to shatter his self-righteous image. As he was walking home over a
bridge, he passed by a slim young woman leaning over the rail and staring into
the river. Stirred by the sight of her, he hesitated a moment, and then walked
on. After crossing the bridge, he heard a body striking the water, a cry
repeated several times, and then the midnight silence again. He wanted to do
something to save her but stood there motionless for a while and then went
home. The nameless lawyer in Camus’ story reminds us in some ways of the
Pharisees in today’s Gospel. The Pharisees were experts in the law and prided
themselves on their scrupulous observance of it. And yet Jesus castigated them
for their hypocrisy by quoting the prophet Isaiah: “This people pay me lip
service but their heart is far from me” (Albert Cylwicki, His Word
Resounds).
8) “Oh yes, I believe in God, but I’m not nuts
about Him” A young coed being interviewed on television about her religious
beliefs said, “Oh yes, I believe in God, but I’m not nuts about Him!” According
to the Gallup Poll that is a good description of how most Americans feel about
God. Ninety-four percent of us believe in God. When it comes to translating
that belief into action, however, most of us are clearly not nuts about Him. We
have something in common with the Pharisees. Jesus once summed up the
Pharisees’ chief problem like this: “These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.” There is a group kin to the
traditionalists that we might call Christian Secularists. This group is made up
of that host of nominally committed people who fill the rolls of most churches.
They bring their children to Sunday School. They use the Church to marry and
bury. They visit us at Christmas and at Easter. They are not atheists or
agnostics. They, like that young coed, believe in God, but they’re not nuts
about him. Today’s Gospel is Christ’s view about such followers.
9) The great Potato Famine in Ireland: Between 1845
and 1849, the Great Potato Famine cruelly tortured Ireland and was responsible
for the slow starvation and deaths of tens of thousands of Irish men, women and
children. The blight that struck the beloved potato, the staple crop of the
tenant farmers, was a blight called phytophthora infestans. As the
disease decimated the potato crop, it assured bare tables and empty stomachs
for millions of working families who depended on the potato for the filling,
nourishing part of their daily diet. What was particularly cruel about this
potato blight was that it left the tubers looking unscathed on the outside. The
vegetables appeared large, firm, and hearty. But when cut open the potato
revealed the blight had consumed it from the inside. The potato would be
rotten, hollowed, soft and stinking from the center out to within a half-inch
of its outer skin. What had looked promising as a meal couldn’t even produce a
mouthful of unrotted pulpy flesh. The potatoes rotted from the inside out. This
is exactly what the Bible means when it talks about original sin. We all have
this blight in our being that rots us from the inside out. So even if we look
great on the outside, and even if we tithe our lottery earnings and put lots of
people to work, our hidden hungers and deep desires within are our true selves.
Paul the Apostle said, “The good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I
would not, I do” (Rom 7:15). We all stand as lepers, ritually unclean,
standing in the need of grace and prayer.
10) “Love Lifted Me” Clarence Jordan the founder of
Koinonia Farm, saw hypocrisy at work at an early age. His father was a
prosperous banker and merchant in a small Georgia town. They lived within one
hundred yards of the Talbot County jail. One hot summer night during a revival
meeting, Jordan noted how carried away the warden of the jail’s chain gang
became while singing, “Love Lifted Me.” He was inspired at how deeply the
prevailing spiritual atmosphere had impacted this man. Later that same night,
however, Jordan was awakened by agonizing groans coming from the direction of
the chain gang camp. He knew what was happening; he had heard these sounds
before. Someone had been placed into the “stretcher” and was being tortured. He
also knew only one person could be responsible for inflicting such torture–the
same man who had been singing “Love Lifted Me” with great emotion and
conviction only hours before. The realization tore at Jordan’s heart. He
identified with the man who was in agony and, as a result, became angry with
the Church as he understood it. Jordan didn’t reject his Faith or launch a
protest, however. He stuffed his anger deep inside until such time as he could
make a difference, which he certainly did in writing the Cotton Patch versions
of the New Testament and in founding Koinonia Farm. [Dr. William Mitchell and
Michael A. Mitchell, Building Strong Families: How Your Family can Withstand
the Challenges of Today’s Culture (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman &
Holman Publishers, 1997), p. 193.]
11) A little dirt is good for you: One leading
researcher, Dr. Joel V. Weinstock . . . said in an interview that the immune
system at birth “is like an unprogrammed computer. It needs instruction . . .
Children raised in an ultraclean environment,” he added, “are not being exposed
to organisms that help them develop appropriate immune regulatory circuits . .
. Children should be allowed to go barefoot in the dirt, play in the dirt, and
not have to wash their hands when they come in to eat,” he said. He pointed out
that children who grow up on farms are much less likely to develop allergies
and autoimmune diseases. Also, helpful, he said, is to “let kids have two dogs
and a cat, which will expose them to intestinal worms that can promote a
healthy immune system.”
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27brod.html?ref=science). Some of us
probably think the good doctor went a little too far, particularly with regard
to worms. However, the case seems fairly well made: a little dirt is good for
you. The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from
Jerusalem saw some of Jesus’ disciples eating food with ritually unwashed
hands.
12) “I was in awe, every time I walked onto the field.”
In 2005, Ryne Sandberg was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame. Listen to
how he describes his devotion to the institution of professional baseball: “I
was in awe,” says Sandberg, “every time I walked onto the field. That’s
respect. I was taught you never, ever disrespect your opponents or your
teammates or your organization or your manager and never, ever, your uniform.
You make a great play, act like you’ve done it before; get a big hit, look for
the third base coach and get ready to run the bases.” Sandberg motioned to
those inducted before him, “These guys sitting up here did not pave the way for
the rest of us so that players could swing for the fences every time up and
forget how to move a runner over to third. It’s disrespectful to them, to you
and to the game of baseball that we all played growing up. Respect. A lot of
people say this honor validates my career,” said Ryne Sandberg, “but I didn’t
work hard for validation. I didn’t play the game right because I saw a reward
at the end of the tunnel. I played it right because that’s what you’re supposed
to do, play it right and with respect . . . If this validates anything, it’s
that guys who taught me the game . . . did what they were supposed to do, and I
did what I was supposed to do.”
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/opinion/27brooks.html?ref=opinion.) Many
people would call Sandberg old-fashioned. And perhaps he is. But respect for
tradition is important for holding things together whether it is a game like
baseball, a culture, or a community of faith, a Church.
13) Don’t substitute rituals for authentic religion:
In Tony Campolo’s book Who Switched the Price Tags? Campolo says
that, as an evangelical Baptist teacher and preacher, one of the most serious
errors he made was to underestimate the value of ritual and tradition. From his
studies of the famous French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, Campolo discovered
how essential and vital “ritual is for the health and maintenance of any social
institution.” Studies have shown, for example, “that in the absence of
consistent ritual, families tend to fall apart morally and psychologically.”
(Rev. Eric S. Ritz). Jesus was not opposed to rituals, ceremonies, traditions.
However, he didn’t want us to substitute rituals for authentic religion or
ceremonies for compassion toward others.
14) Changing rules of the game: Jesus had a
knack for constantly changing the rules of the game of life in order to
incorporate a larger sphere of people in his Kingdom net. One sport where the
rules have occasionally been changed is volleyball. Volleyball is a well-established
game with rules which are basically understood by everyone who plays. But many
times, we would have children playing the game who were either handicapped or
mentally retarded. In order to integrate these special children into the game
of volleyball, it was necessary to change the standing rules or laws of the
game. We would say that it was fair for the special children to catch and throw
the ball instead of having to volley the ball. This enabled all of the children
to be part of the game. In our text Jesus was concerned that all of his
children be a part of his Kingdom life. And he would go so far as to change the
rules and regulations and laws in order to integrate as many of his children as
possible. The Pharisees and teachers used the law to exclude people from the
kingdom. This angered Jesus to the point of remembering what Isaiah had
written: “These people honor me with their words, but their heart is really
far away from me.”
15) Where are your sheep? In the late 1960s a soldier
returned from Vietnam with a war bride. They made their home in rural Virginia.
And they went to church. He was suffering post-battle stress syndrome and
drinking heavily. She was Asian, lonely, and struggling to understand American
society. The town shunned her. She was “different.” It was whispered she’d
gotten pregnant to trap a husband and escape Saigon. People would not let their
children play with hers. No one rang her phone. She grew depressed and finally
killed her child and herself. At her funeral the Lord asked the pastor, “Where
are your sheep?” He gave no reply. The Lord asked a second time, “Where are
your sheep?” And the pastor said, “I don’t have any sheep. I have a pack of
wolves!” What of us? What of us? Will we be Jesus’ lambs or self-made wolves? The
one is the product of grace, the other of demons and self.
16) You are a Pharisee: You might be a Pharisee if
you’ve ever shouted, “Amen!” more than 51 times during a single sermon on
somebody else’s sin. You might be a Pharisee if you think the only music God
listens to is at least 100 years old … if you’re sure nobody has ever had to
forgive you … if your black leather Bible is so big it takes two hands to hold
it up. You might be a Pharisee if you think the world would be a better place
if everyone were just like you … if you think Jesus might have overstepped his
bounds when he turned water into wine … if you think big hair is a sign of
holiness … if you go to Church to prove you’re good! That is why Jesus issues
three bewares to his disciples: “Beware the leaven of the Herodians” (Mark
8:15), “Beware the leaven of the Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6) and
“Beware the leaven of the Pharisees,” (Matthew 16:6). You are a
Pharisee if have faith in your ideas and traditions about God instead of a
relationship with the Living God, if you inclined to see what’s wrong with
everything, if have a martyr complex, if you crave recognition, if you believe
you are closer to God than others, if you have a “That’s him!” attitude, if you
constantly wallowing in guilt with the feelings that you can never measure up,
if you are repulsed by emotional extravagance, if you glory in the past, if you
are addicted to self-help pop psychology, if you bring division instead of
lasting works, if you don’t take correction, if you believe you have been
appointed by God to fix everything, if your prayer life is mechanical, if you
believe you are on the cutting edge, if you are bossy, if you are intolerant,
merciless and take pride in downward comparisons, if you are suspicious of new
movements, if you are offended when you are addressed without the use of a
proper title, and if you glory in anything but Jesus and the cross.
17) White shoes in Summer: There was an amusing
incident several years ago when the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, visited
Houston, Texas. When the Duchess made her first public appearance in Houston
she wore a summer dress and matching white shoes. Now a summer dress can be appropriate
attire in November in Texas, but every good Southern belle knows you don’t wear
white shoes after Labor Day. It simply isn’t done. Fergie’s fashion faux pas
caused an uproar. It was the hot topic on all the news shows and radio shows in
Houston. Finally, the Duchess’ press secretary actually had to issue a press
release explaining that this custom was unheard of in England. [Schwartz,
Marilyn. A Southern Belle Primer (New York: Doubleday, 1991), p. 21.]
Some traditions are just plain silly, like expressing dismay at someone wearing
white shoes in November. Others can be sinful, like washing your hands to
demonstrate to others your piety, when really your heart is far from God.
18) Sleeping Beauty’s Castle: The centerpiece
of Disney World, its most familiar icon, is the beautiful Sleeping Beauty’s
Castle. Its tall towers, fluttering banners, imposing size, and fairy-tale
perfection draw every child (and isn’t that all of us?) towards it. But at
Disney World, with all its technological wizardry and attention to detail, that
centerpiece castle is a disappointment to first-time visitors. At least it was
for me. Far from being filled with magical nooks and crannies, secret
staircases, vast ballrooms and airy aeries to gaze out at the rest of the
“magic kingdom” Sleeping Beauty’s Castle is empty. The castle is a hollow
shell. The castle’s function is simply to serve as a portal into the Magic
Kingdom, which loses some of its magic as soon as it becomes apparent that the
castle is nothing more than a glorified archway. The outward appearance is all
deception. Sleeping Beauty’s Castle has no heart of its own. Jesus wants to
transform you this morning from the inside out, not from the outside in.
Whatever the hollowed-out areas of your life, Jesus wants to fill them in with
his presence and power. Jesus wants to give you a new heart a heart of Faith, a
heart of Hope, a heart of Love.
19) No drowning celebration in New Orleans: In 1985
there was a celebration in New Orleans. New Orleans is a town known for celebrating,
but this was a special kind of celebration. Sponsored by the city, it was a
celebration at the municipal pool in New Orleans. The city’s life guards and
support personnel were commemorating the first summer in memory with no
drownings in the pools of that city. Two hundred people showed up for that
party; one hundred of them were certified life guards. They had a great time,
but as the party broke up, and the four life guards on duty for the occasion
cleared the water, they found a fully dressed body in the deep end of the pool.
Jerome Moody, age 31, had drowned right in the midst of the celebration. They
tried in vain to revive him. [Jon Tal Murphree, Made To Be Mastered,
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1984).] When I read that, I wondered
to myself if it might be possible, right here in the body of Christ, right here
with all the certified life guards – Sunday School teachers, officers of the
church, choir members, pastors and all — could it be possible that there is
someone who is drowning? Someone who is hurting so inside that there has come a
barrier between him/her and God? He/she is one of the walking wounded.
20) Freedom of choice is the right to hate: The
December 1998 issue of Life magazine carried a full-page picture of a
group of about a dozen protestors. These people with twisted and angry faces
were not protesting at the White House or in front of a military base. They
were protesting at a funeral. One of them holds a sign which reads in big
letters: “FREEDOM OF CHOICE IS THE RIGHT TO HATE.” They were protesting at the
October 16, 1998 funeral of Matthew Shephard, the 21-year-old gay student
beaten to death and hanged cross-like on a fence in Laramie, Wyoming. After
such a terrible crime, could they not at least allow Matthew’s family and
friends to mourn in peace? I wonder if the people protesting at Matthew
Shephard’s funeral consider themselves Christians. If so, I wonder how they
justify their hatred–regardless of how they might have felt about Shephard’s
lifestyle. Even on the cross, Jesus forgave his enemies. How could they
possibly justify hatred in his name? But that’s what happens when your lips are
one place and your heart is somewhere else. You use religion to mask a heart
filled with evil. You use religion as a weapon against those whom you despise.
21) Do we stand for God? Centuries ago in one of the
Egyptian monasteries, a man came and asked to be admitted. The abbot told him
that the chief rule was obedience, and the man promised to be patient on all
occasions, even under excessive provocation. It chanced that the abbot was
holding a dried-up willow stick in his hands; he forthwith fixed the dead stick
into the earth and told the newcomer to water it until, against all rules of
nature, it should once again become green. Obediently the new monk walked two
miles every day to the river Nile to bring a vessel of water on his shoulders
and water the dry stick. A year passed by and he was still faithful to his
task, though very weary. Another year and still he toiled on. Well into the
third year he was still trudging to the river and back, still watering the
stick, when suddenly it burst into life. -The green bush alive today is a
living witness to the mighty virtues of obedience and faith. (F. H. Drinkwater
in Quotes and Anecdotes; quoted by Fr. Botelho).
22) The Wrongs of Rites: A disciple once
boasted about the effectiveness of his prayers and pilgrimages. His Guru
advised him to take a bitter gourd along with him on his pilgrimage to place at
every altar, to dip into every holy river and to be blessed at every shrine.
When the disciple returned, the Guru reverently conducted a liturgy with the
bitter gourd, cut it into pieces, and distributed it as sacramental food.
Tasting it he declared, “Isn’t it surprising that all the prayers, pujas and
pilgrimages, have not reduced the bitterness of this gourd?” Many people spend
much time discussing rectitude of rituals and reinforcement of rites. Isn’t it
time to stop fighting about rites and rituals and begin fighting for the rights
of those orphans and widows mentioned in the Scripture? (Francis Gonsalves in
Sunday Seeds for Daily Deeds: quoted by Fr. Botelho).
23) Their heart is not in it…A man died
recently and went to Heaven. He was very happy up there, as he wandered about,
exploring the place. One Sunday morning he bumped into Jesus (it could happen
up there, just as sure as down here!). Jesus called him over to show him
something. He opened a sort of trap door in the floor of heaven, so that the
man could look through, and see even as far as the earth below. Eventually,
Jesus got him to focus his attention on a Church, his own local Church at home,
where there was a full congregation at Mass. The man watched for a while, and
then something began to puzzle him. He could see the priest moving his lips and
turning over the pages. He could see the choir holding their hymnals, and the
organist thumping the keyboards. But he couldn’t hear a sound. It was total
silence. Thinking that the amplification system in heaven had broken down, he turned
to Jesus for an explanation. Jesus looked at him in surprise. “Didn’t anybody
ever tell you? We have a rule here that if they don’t do those things down
there with their hearts, we don’t hear them up here at all!” (Jack McArdle in And
That’s the Gospel Truth! Quoted by Fr. Botelho).
24) Pursuit of enemy not hindered by prayer:
Barclay’s second story is about a Muslim pursuing an enemy to kill him. In the
midst of the pursuit, the Azan, or public call to prayer, sounded. Instantly
the Muslim got off his horse, unrolled his prayer mat, knelt down and prayed
the required prayers as fast as he could. Then he leaped back on his horse to
pursue his enemy in order to kill him. Jesus opposes this type of legalism in
the Jewish religion in today’s Gospel.
25) Be doers of the word: St Fidelis, a martyr from
southern Germany who died in 1622, is a good example. • Fidelis began his
professional life as a brilliant and effective lawyer. • From the way he
practiced law, he accrued a reputation for honesty, integrity, and
effectiveness. • But his colleagues’ habitual dishonesty and self-seeking
disgusted him so much that he left his career and became a Capuchin friar. • He
put his lawyering skills to work in a heavy load of preaching, hearing
confessions, and organizing care for the sick, many of whom he cured with
miracles. • Everywhere he went whole towns were renewed in an energetic
adherence to Christ and his Church. • When he and eight companions were sent to
bring the Zwinglians (a branch of early Protestantism) of western Switzerland
back into the Catholic fold, his mission met with similar success. • Too much
success, maybe. • Soon the local leaders had had enough and roused the peasants
against him. • They attempted to shoot him while he was preaching but missed. •
Then they ambushed him on the road and beat him to death when he wouldn’t
renounce his Catholic Faith. • The prayers for his attackers that escaped from
his dying lips converted a Zwinglian minister who witnessed the martyrdom. If
we live our Faith from the inside out, not only putting on a show, we will find
the happiness we seek, and help others find it too. (E-Priest)
26) Lip Service: A story is told of a Moslem who, while pursuing a man with an upraised knife to kill him, heard the muezzin’s call to prayer from the minaret. He stopped, extended his prayer rug, said his prescribed prayers, and then continued his original pursuit after the man he wished to kill. He had said his prayers now he could go about his sordid business. Unfortunately, changing what has to be changed, the same could be observed of some Christians, who while pursuing their sinful activities, may stop to attend church services before getting back to their same old sinful pursuits. (Anonymous; quoted by Fr. Botelho).
26) Lip Service: A story is told of a Moslem who, while pursuing a man with an upraised knife to kill him, heard the muezzin’s call to prayer from the minaret. He stopped, extended his prayer rug, said his prescribed prayers, and then continued his original pursuit after the man he wished to kill. He had said his prayers now he could go about his sordid business. Unfortunately, changing what has to be changed, the same could be observed of some Christians, who while pursuing their sinful activities, may stop to attend church services before getting back to their same old sinful pursuits. (Anonymous; quoted by Fr. Botelho).
