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To long for God and to renounce all the rest -- that alone can save us. The attitude that brings about salvation is not like any form of activity. . . . It is the waiting or attentive and faithful immobility that lasts indefinitely and cannot be shaken. - Simone Weil
(Spend some time “waiting on God.” Don’t evaluate the results in terms of any feelings or states of consciousness. The waiting itself is a good and holy
practice.)
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Daily Readings
1 Kgs 8:22-23, 27-30;
PS 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."
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Mark 7: 1-13 (The injustice of certain traditions) Although the
Pharisees are constantly criticized in the gospels, they were popular religious leaders, similar in stature among their communities to today’s parish priests. Their major fault lay in their legalistic observance of the Law, even to the point of hurting people or ignoring human needs in the process. Jesus points out a few examples of this in today’s reading. • Can you think of
an example of legalism in your own experience in the Church? How does this affect your involvement in the Church now? • What criteria did Jesus employ for evaluating the justice of a law?
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK IV: OF THE DECAY AND RUIN OF CHARITY Chapter 7: That we must . . . humbly acquiesce in God's most wise providence. S. Augustine in a hundred places teaches us this practice. "No one cometh to Our Saviour," says he, "if not drawn;--whom he draws, and whom he draws not, why he draws this one and not that,--do not wish to judge if you do not wish to err. Listen once for all and understand. Art thou not drawn, pray that thou mayst be drawn." "Verily it is sufficient for a Christian living as yet by faith, and not seeing that which is perfect, but
only knowing in part, to know and believe that God delivers none from damnation, but by his free mercy, through our Lord Jesus Christ; and that he condemns none but by his most just truth, through the same Lord Jesus Christ. But to know why he delivers this one rather than the other--let that man sound so great a depth of God's judgments who is able, but let him beware of the precipice." "These judgments are not therefore unjust because they are hidden." "But why then does he deliver this man
rather than that? We say again, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? [209] His judgments are incomprehensible, and his ways unknown, and let us add this: Seek not the things that are too high for thee, and search not into things above thy ability:" [210] "Now he granteth not them mercy, to whom, by a truth most secret and furthest removed from men's thoughts, he judges it not fit to communicate his favours and
mercy."
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