Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Gospel Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)
Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the market-place, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
“‘This people honours me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of
men.”
And
he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of
you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him
can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.
“For
from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality,
theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and
they defile a person.”
This
was also the great temptation of the modern age, of the past three or four
centuries. More and more people have thought and said: ‘But this God does not
give us our freedom; with all his commandments, he restricts the space in our
lives. So God has to disappear; we want to be autonomous and independent.
Without this God we ourselves would be gods and do as we pleased’.
This
was also the view of the Prodigal Son, who did not realize that he was ‘free’
precisely because he was in his father's house. He left for distant lands and
squandered his estate. In the end, he realized that precisely because he had
gone so far away from his father, instead of being free he had become a slave;
he understood that only by returning home to his father's house would he be
truly free, in the full beauty of life.
But
human laws can become oppressive to the extent that people no longer experience
the freedom that God's own law bring. That is what Jesus is addressing with the
Pharisees and scribes questioning him. But Jesus wasn't questioning tradition
or traditions as such, but those that had become oppressive.
The
Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that our faith is based on Sacred Scripture
and Tradition:
One
common source
80 "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture,
then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both
of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some
fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal."Each of them
makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to
remain with his own "always, to the close of the age".
. . . two distinct modes of transmission
81 "Sacred
Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the
breath of the Holy Spirit."
"And
[Holy] Tradition transmits in its
entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the
Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so
that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound
and spread it abroad by their preaching."
Tradition,
with an upper-case 'T', is fundamental to our Catholic faith. But traditions,
with a lower-case 't', can help us know and live our faith, can strengthen our
sense of identity as a community of faith. Traditions too can give us a sense
of identity as a family or a nation or any group to which we belong. Connected
with traditions are symbols. National flags and anthems are examples. These
help us to know who 'We' are. That doesn't mean being over and against others.
When we are secure in our own communal identity we can honour and identify with
other groups in theirs.
I
am inclined to think that one of the reasons for the exodus from the Catholic
Church and the rejection of the Christian faith itself in recent decades in the
Western world is the abandonment of traditions and symbols by the Church after
the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), none of them mandated by the Council. We
abandoned the universal Friday abstinence from meat. We abandoned the Lenten
fast. Catholics were encouraged to choose their own penances instead - Whatever
you're having yourself, as we say in Ireland in a slightly different
context. The communal aspect of traditions that had help bring the life of God
himself to the Church for most of its existence was abandoned.
Eucharist in Fruit WreathEveryone used to kneel at the altar-rails to receive Holy Communion. Altar-rails were taken out of so many churches. I could go on. A 2019 study in the USA shows that only thirty percent of Catholics there believe that in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the bread and wine become the 'body, blood, soul and divinity' of Christ. They see only symbols of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord in the Holy Eucharist. (The notes to the painting above touch on this).
This is not what the Tradition of the Church and Sacred Scripture teaches us. It was precisely on this issue that many of the disciples walked away from Jesus in last Sunday's gospel.
I'll conclude with the opening words of Pope Benedict's Angelus talk on 2 September 2012 when he spoke about today's readings, with my emphases: The theme of God’s Law, of his commandments, makes its entrance in the Liturgy of the Word this Sunday. It is an essential element of the Jewish and Christian religions, where the complete fulfilment of the law is love (cf. Rom 13:10). God’s Law is his word which guides men and women on the journey through life, brings them out of the slavery of selfishness and leads them into the “land” of true freedom and life. This is why the Law is not perceived as a burden or an oppressive restriction in the Bible. Rather, it is seen as the Lord’s most precious gift, the testimony of his fatherly love, of his desire to be close to his People, to be its Ally and with it write a love story.
Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 8-29-2021 if necessary).
Epistle: Galatians 5:16-24. Gospel: Matthew 26-33.
And for raiment why
are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they
labour not, neither do they spin [Matthew
6:28],
Authentic Beauty
Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.
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