Who is it that has helped you most? Has it not been those who believed in you? Perhaps there may be few such left. The light of expectation may have died out of the most friendly and hopeful eyes; and you yourself may have lost heart. Ah! but there is still One whose faith in you has never wavered. And how wonderful it is that that one should be Jesus Christ!...
- A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), The Galilean Accent
(Pray that your identity might become increasingly rooted in Christ's love and acceptance of you. Take time to "just be" in his loving awareness this day.)
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1 Kgs 8:22-23, 27-30; Psalm 84:3, 4, 5 and 10, 11
Mk 7:1-13
When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem
gathered around Jesus,
they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals
with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.
(For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews,
do not eat without carefully washing their hands,
keeping the tradition of the elders.
And on coming from the marketplace
they do not eat without purifying themselves.
And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed,
the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.)
So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him,
“Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders
but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”
He responded,
“Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites,
as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
In vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.
You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”
He went on to say,
“How well you have set aside the commandment of God
in order to uphold your tradition!
For Moses said,
Honor your father and your mother,
and Whoever curses father or mother shall die.
Yet you say,
‘If someone says to father or mother,
“Any support you might have had from me is qorban”’
(meaning, dedicated to God),
you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother.
You nullify the word of God
in favor of your tradition that you have handed on.
And you do many such things.”
Reflection on the Scriptures
The elders and people of Israel gathered to the holy of holies, the Ark of the Covenant, the place where God dwelt.
The people gathered to wherever Jesus was.
The people of Israel knew of their covenant with God. Their God who was faithful and traveled with them. Their God, who protected them. A cloud was a sign that God was present.
Jesus, the New Covenant, was recognized as holy. He walked with the people, healed them, fed them, confronted violence, gave them peace, hope and the promise of life eternal. He was God with them.
Where does God dwell for us? Where are our holy places? Where do we meet God?
On the street? In the hospitals? In the prisons? In our home, church, nature, or heart?
- by Sr. Candice Tucci, OSF
The Existence of God
by Francois Fenelon
SECTION. III. Why so few Persons are attentive to the Proofs Nature affords of
the Existence of God.
If a great number of people of subtle and penetrating wit have not discovered God with one cast of the eye upon nature, it is not matter of wonder; for either the passions they have been tossed by have still rendered them incapable of any fixed reflection, or the false prejudices that result from passions have, like a thick cloud, interposed between their eyes and that noble spectacle. A person deeply
concerned in an affair of great importance, that should take up all the attention of his mind, might pass several days in a room treating about his concerns without taking notice of the proportions of the chamber, the ornaments of the chimney, and the pictures about him, all which objects would continually be before his eyes, and yet none of them make any impression upon him. In this manner it is that many spend their lives; everything offers God to their sight, and yet they see it
nowhere. "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and nevertheless the world did not know Him" They pass away their lives without perceiving that sensible representation of the Deity. Such is the fascination of worldly trifles that obscures their eyes! Nay, oftentimes they will not so much as open them, but rather affect to keep them shut, lest they should find Him they do not look for. In short, what ought to help most to open their eyes serves only to
close them faster; I mean the constant duration and regularity of the motions which the Supreme Wisdom has put in the universe. St. Austin tells us those great wonders have been debased by being constantly renewed; and Tully speaks exactly in the same manner. "By seeing every day the same things, the mind grows familiar with them as well as the eyes. It neither admires nor inquires into the causes of effects that are ever seen to happen in the same manner, as if it were the
novelty, and not the importance of the thing itself, that should excite us to such an inquiry."
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