predication.net

How often do we ask for something from someone, and our requests and petitions go unheard, like the request of the Pharisees and scribes in today’s Gospel? Why is this so? Didn’t Jesus want to perform a miracle, or couldn’t he? Indeed, this is not why Jesus refused their request.

Jesus knew their intention. He knew that they had come to tempt him: “They tempted him by asking him for a sign from heaven!” (Mk 8:11)

With what intentions do we go to other people? Do our intentions and motives even matter? They certainly are. Our actions and their value before God depend on our intentions. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Through pure intention, which consists in focusing on one’s true goal, we strive to find and fulfill God’s will in all things.” (CCC 2520). We will step back and look at it more closely from this definition. The pure intention could be defined as the motive that leads us to do something good. A reason that is not for my benefit but seeks the good of the one I will help.

In other words: looking at the problem of others through their eyes. To see not oneself but one’s neighbor. Think not of the good of self, but of the brother or sister who needs a helping hand. To focus on the right goal is to put God first in your life. God is to be number one. To seek God’s will and to do it is the duty of each one of us.
Let us open ourselves to God. Let us let God into our lives and not fear Him. With him, we can do all things. We need to trust him and let him lead us. He will show us the way and direct us. We will purify our intentions with him and begin to know his will.

A great example of good seeking is the Old Testament, King Solomon. Young Solomon had many desires: wealth, military power, fame, prosperity, long life, happiness… But when God asked him for one thing – when He asked him for his highest good, he wished for wisdom from above. Solomon rightly reasoned that it was just such a gift that would bring him the fulfillment of all his other desires. And God thus answered his choice: “Because thou hast desired this thing, and hast not desired long age, nor hast desired riches, nor hast desired the life of thine enemies, but hast desired to understand, that thou mayest understand the law, I will do to thee according to thy desire: Behold, I will give thee a wise heart and understanding; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither shall there be any like thee after thee. But I will also give thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches and glory so that there shall be none like thee among kings all thy days.” (1 Kings 3:11-13).

Let us examine our intentions; God is with us and helps us.

As you know, one of the basic needs of every human being, apart from sleeping and drinking, is to receive food. This means that no one, no matter how much he wants to, can live without food because everybody, to function well, to be healthy and fit, must be nourished by something. But what about the soul of man? Must it also be raised with something to be able to function and to remain healthy and fit?

In today’s Gospel, we hear the words: “Who can satisfy them with bread here in the wilderness, and how?” (Mk 8:4).
They are words uttered by Christ’s disciples as a kind of wonder at Christ’s same reasoning, that he could not just let go of so many people who had followed him so far without feeding them with something. “But how?” the disciples ask. How can so many people be fed on seven loaves and a pair of fish? The answer was given. When Christ took the loaves and fishes, he gave thanks, blessed, broke, and gave, and they all ate and were filled.
But as in every gospel, we need to see in this event not just some description of the feeding of the multitude; we need to know the theology, the spirituality of it above all. And what does it consist of?

The Evangelist Mark wants to tell us one important thing with this description, that everyone who follows Christ, who follows him and obeys his word, will live and will never starve, spiritually starve, because Christ satisfies with food that not so much the body, but precisely the soul revives, heals and strengthens.
Yes, not the body, but the soul, because we can nourish the body even without Christ, but not the soul…. soul. Man cannot feed his soul alone, but only with Christ, for the soul, to be healthy and fit, does not need bodily food as the body does, but it needs spiritual food. But this, like food of the flesh, man cannot get by himself at any time and in any place, nor can he buy it, but it can only be obtained. It can only be accepted as a gift and grace from God if one follows and walks after Christ.

Well, let us consider, how is our soul? Are we taking care of it? Are we nourishing it with that spiritual food that Christ gives? Do we keep it healthy and fit, or do we care only for the body and forget the soul? Whether and how we care for the soul is seen in our very attitude towards it and whether and how we care for it. The approach to Holy Confession and especially to Holy Communion. But let us remember that it is not the health of the body, but the health of the soul that is most important in the life of each one of us.

The soul, like the body, is also an integral part of us, a part of our life. For without it, as without the body, we cannot exist. Although it is invisible, it is within us, and therefore it is also our task to care for it, just as we care for our bodies daily. Let us not neglect it, but let us follow Christ and walk after Him, for where Christ is, there is also spiritual food, the food of the soul. He is the broken food and given daily, even at this Holy Mass, because He wants our body to be fed and healthy and our soul.

Let us, therefore, come to Holy Communion often, not out of compulsion, but out of love for Christ and out of a desire for life and a healthy soul. Therefore, let us also pray at this Mass to follow Christ daily and receive his body as typically as possible as spiritual food for the soul.

Love is an implacable and endless war of extermination against
one’s selfishness. The antithesis, then, is the well-meaning, that which
the betrothed consider good for themselves. Because what my wife and I feel good about can be two different things. Praying every day for the gift of love is a sage thing to do. The relationship cannot survive independently; it needs to be nurtured by prayer every day. Constituent prayer, the French call it priers continually, in the tradition of the Eastern Fathers, coupled with the invocation of the name of Jesus, shelters love from storms and protects it from me, from my selfishness.
I don’t think man and woman are complementary. Instead, I think they walk hand in hand in their separate universes. Zoologist Robert Trivers looks at men and women as two fundamentally different biological species. We are different. Men think differently, and women feel, in their way, different from men. Both methods have their laws and their logic. That’s why, despite the books about Mars and Venus, sometimes men think they’re from Earth and that woman is from somewhere on Mars. But just because men don’t see the logic in women’s reasoning doesn’t mean that logic doesn’t exist: it means they don’t see it. It is remarkable how a man and woman are filled with goodwill and mutual love in their relationship and how they unwittingly inflict pain and unpleasant injuries on each other. It’s as if an alien astronaut had come to Earth, and we were very carefully trying to determine how to show our friendship. Or how, when an ethnographer tries to contact a new tribe in a hitherto undiscovered country. A bouquet of roses is a sign of love in a man’s world, but what does it mean in a girl’s world? Won’t a girl see a well-meaning joke as a declaration of war? Will she does not understand an offer of an escort home as a sovereign violation of her independence?

Her yes sometimes means yes, and other time’s no. Similarly, her no sometimes means no, and other times yes. Sometimes she says yes and no in a single sentence and means yes, and sometimes she means no. Sometimes both yes and no mean – of course, for all intents and purposes – yes and no. Sometimes yes and no compromise decide for yourself. Like in Chinese, the accent matters a lot and the circumstances. It has its logic. Sometimes a woman speaks in allusions that she considers transparent. Sometimes, as in military ciphers, the text means something other than what the word sequence implies, and inside the sentence, there is another sentence. Sometimes there is an anxious cry hidden in two calmly spoken announcement sentences, sometimes a plea and sometimes a message. As in folk songs, the melody is often a much more important statement than the text itself, which serves as the scaffolding of the piece. We men often remain in the first plane of words and fail to perceive the more critical second meaning hidden within. Women speak a different language, and it confuses men that their language in its various uses the same vocabulary and the same grammar. “You don’t understand me at all,” the women then point out, and the men have no that they remember precisely and everything, the woman said. Sometimes the mood changes without demonstrable cause, and similarly like a stricken airplane sinking and sinking until the final explosion in the sea. The men don’t understand and are surprised to learn from the girls that they don’t either.

Behaviorists regard man as a kind of black box: we know inputs and outputs, but we don’t know what’s going on inside. It is in this way
many times men think of women. How else is it possible that a girl, with all her calm courage, patient endurance of suffering, hard as steel, is simultaneously so vulnerable and delicate that a man feels he is holding in his arms the most fragile creature in the universe?
I find it ridiculous that marriage strategists with manuals, survival courses, and stupid slogans about love pass through the stomach. Whatever the saints were, they weren’t cynical and never had the humor of the kind. I don’t need a hot meal to live, don’t be angry, nor a regular diet, nor a life with a full pension, but I need to love and be loved, or I’ll die. A man struck by love is always in some way bowed out, as I ask many lovers when I ask them to pray incessantly for the beloved soul? A ceaseless prayer, priére continually, for the soul, which I have been entrusted to accompany, passes before waking up, as memory fills all the important and unimportant moments in the day, study and work, lessons and breaks, waiting for the bus and waiting in all the queues of the day; it is in the conversations and the creation and accompanies us at dusk and when we fall asleep. It continues in sleep. Invoking Jesus’ holy name is the simplest way of constant prayer. If an attentive heart humbly repeats it often, this invocation does not dissipate in “muchness” but preserves the word and bears fruit with perseverance.

Even if we don’t directly say to someone, or implement in ourselves, the words, the advice “Open up!”, we can often encounter this and similar thoughts.

Is the child closing up to you? Not listening? He does it his way. Many times it is not until it is too late that we realize how much effort, how much energy the people around us have put in to help us, and we have ignored them, not listened to them, and not respected their advice, their goodwill to help us. The doctor needs us to cooperate with him in his treatment. A teacher will teach more to those who want to learn. The athlete knows that it pays to listen and follow the coach’s words.

And that is why in the spiritual life, too, we need to reflect on our openness to God. Let us ask ourselves: How do we listen to the voice of God in our conscience? What do the words of the confessor mean to us…? Do we reflect on the word of God, the Gospel, or the sermon of the priest? To open ourselves to God, to welcome God into our lives, is for each person not only a step forward but often a mile, a mile…

The deaf of the Gospel, when he fulfilled Jesus’ call, “Effeta,” which means, “Open yourself!” At that moment, his ears were opened, and he loosed his fettered tongue and spoke rightly” (Mk 7:34-35).

Jesus had compassion for the suffering. The words of the prophet Isaiah were fulfilled, “Say to the fainthearted: “Take heart! Behold your God!… He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened. The lame shall leap like a deer, the tongue of the dumb shall shout for joy.” (Isa. 35:4-5).

The healing of the deaf and dumb speaks of the hope of a person genuinely wanting to communicate with God. How many challenges to our reflection and following. The deaf man was brought in and asked Jesus to lay hands on him. The sick man did not come alone. The ill needed help. It pleases God when we ask Him not only for ourselves but also for those suffering in our neighborhood.

The Gospel says that if we believe Jesus has power, why not seek him out? When we are sick, and others care about us, let us be led to Jesus. If faith is even as small as a mustard seed, why not entrust ourselves wholly and completely to Jesus?
In baptism, Jesus touched our souls. Baptism is not just a remembrance but a daily engagement with Christ. Those who knowingly and willingly sin after baptism need to regain their broken friendship with God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Sin makes us deaf and dumb and blind, lame, and dead. Jesus wants us to be his brothers and sisters again, living witnesses, teachers of his good news, and spreaders of his word. That is why he reminds us, “Effata,” which means, “Open!” (Mk 7:34) Jesus rightly asks the Christian to want to open himself to him, to be able to open himself to him, to hear his words, and to speak them.

Today is the moment to ask me what kind of Christian am I? Am I able to listen to Christ, accept his demands, or am I just asking, pleading, commanding God, or imposing my will? Am I not wiser than God? Recall how we listen to God’s word; do I ponder and meditate on God’s word? Am I opening myself up to God’s word? Jesus said to the Hebrews: “He who is of God hears the words of God.” (Jn. 8:47). Don’t these words also belong to us?
Suppose after Mass someone asks you, “Who preached the sermon?” Suppose someone were to say XY priest. Such an answer is not entirely true. A proper response should be: “XY priest and I preached the sermon.” Why is such an answer correct..? When we hear the Word of God, we believers are obligated to open ourselves to the Word of God. We are to open ourselves to God’s word. “Taffeta,” which means, “Open up!” (Mk 7:34). Let us consider – when we do not open ourselves when listening to God’s word, the preacher’s words may be wise, faithful, precious, but nothing will change inside us. Why did we come to Mass in the first place if we wanted to avoid opening ourselves to God…? The state of our soul also depends on us how we cooperate with God. Why is it that perhaps we have not heard God for a long time, and why do we not know how to speak to God? Let us not look for fault with God. Let us not say that Jesus does not love us. We come to Mass and some even to the sacraments, but we want to avoid opening up to God. We are full of “ourselves,” and we would like to avoid hearing God. We may confess our sins, but we do not make amends. We live in the same sins without trying to change our circumstances, leave the acquaintance, and leave the place where friendship with God is lost; we are unwilling to respond more actively to the voice of God within us, to the teachings of the Church. If we do not open ourselves to God, as he rightly asks of us, we will leave, so to speak, “empty” even today.

To the priest after Holy Confession, the parishioner with tears in his eyes says: “Please pray for me to change.” The priest promised help. A year later, again after confession, the parishioner, equally moved, asks the pastor, “Please pray for me.” The priest asks the parishioner to help him carry the table from one room to another. Once they were holding the table and the parishioner was dragging the table into the other room, the priest dropped it to the floor at once. After the priest has dropped the table on the floor several times in this way, the parishioner says: “Mr. Parish Priest, we are not going to move the table like this.” The priest just waited for these words and said: “You are asking me to pray for you to change. I am praying, but after a year, you have not yet done your part to change.”

An incident is related to the Greek orator Demosthenes: he once spoke forcefully to the Athenians about the need and importance of love for the city. He said sparingly and used many beautiful words. But the Athenians did not listen to him. Some yawned, others dozed, others underestimated the meaning of his words, and still, others talked. Then Demosthenes stopped speaking and remarked: “Now I will tell you the fable of the ass.” Suddenly there was silence, and all became alarmed, eager to hear the foolish fable of the donkey as if the happiness of Athens depended on it.

It is suitable when we are not like the Athenians. God’s word is necessary for us. And so we accept the invitation, the warning of Jesus when we have already come and perhaps been brought. Jesus takes us aside from everyone, touches our ears and mouths, and says to us, “Effeta,” which means, “Open!” (Mk 7:34). Our Lady says that “there was no one heard who took refuge under her protection and begged her help … that he would not be heard.” We know of Our Lady the words that “she kept all (Jesus’) words in her heart.” (Lk 2:51).

May our response of faith be demonstrated by works. “What we are speaking louder than what we say.” (Emerson) Our life as Christians is a calling card of our faith. Words convince few, but the only argument is our life. Verba moment, exempla tara hunt. About Jesus the crowd – when he taught, he did signs and wonders, he spoke: “He does all things well: he gives hearing to the deaf and speech to the dumb.” (Mk 7:37).

The father can do everything when the child does not want to cooperate. Only man has a reason and free will. A doctor can be a worldly expert when the patient does not do his bidding. God loves everyone, but He makes our happiness, both natural and eternal, conditional upon our being willing and open to His Word. What shall we answer? Let our answer be to the effect that we no longer want to linger in one place, but we want to receive God’s word, we want to be open to God’s word, and we want to grow in faith, hope, and love for God.

Thank you, God, for the reminder to open ourselves to your Word. This is what I want to ask you for today.

1. Just for today, I will try to get through the day without wanting to solve the problem of my life all at once.

2. Only on this day will I be as careful as possible to conduct myself with dignity, not to criticize anyone, and certainly not to try to correct or correct anyone… only myself.

3. Only on this day will I be happy in the certainty that I am made for happiness… Not only in the world to come, but in this world as well.

4. Only on this day will I adapt to circumstances without circumstances adapting to my desires.

5. Only on this day will I devote ten minutes of my time to a good reading. Good literature is as necessary for the spiritual life as nutrition is necessary for the physical life.

6. Only on this day will I do a good deed and tell no one about it.

7. Only on this day will I do something that I do not want to do at all. And if perhaps I feel offended, I will be careful that no one will know it.

8. Only on this day will I prepare a particular program. I may not keep it exactly, but I will set it. And I will guard against two mistakes: rashness and indecision.

9. Only on this day will I firmly believe that God’s good providence cares for me as if there were no one in the world but me. I will consider this even if circumstances indicate otherwise.

10. I will not be afraid this day alone. And especially, I will not be scared to believe in goodness and rejoice in all that is beautiful.

It is given to me to do good for twelve hours; if I think I should do it all my life, it would probably take courage.

For example, if you’re experimenting using lab mice, it’s recommended that a janitor or cleaning lady divide them into a test group and a control group you’re experimenting using lab mice; for example, it’s recommended that a janitor or cleaning lady divide them into a test group and a control. This is because it has been found that when you root for a hypothesis, you choose, even subconsciously, experimental mice that are more active and viable – and this can bias your results.
It means that the pursuit of objectivity at all costs is prevalent. Thanks to our penchant for analysis, we’ve also made it this far in science. When a researcher wants to know something about the structure of an atom or even smaller particles than an atom, he tries to bombard them with a cyclotron. A physicist jokingly compared these experiments to a car that you would like to know how it works but has no choice but to run it violently into a wall, wait to see what falls out, and then reverse-engineer the engine’s function from those parts.
In physics and chemistry, the analysis works; in biology, it starts to fail significantly. When I dissect an animal, I get a detailed view of its
of its internal organs, but I do not find out, for example, how it behaves in its natural environment, how it acquires its food, what its courtship rituals are, and so on. Just because I’m an excellent anatomist doesn’t mean that I understand animal life: the advent of ecology and ethology in the twentieth century completely overturned the Enlightenment ideal of the animal as a biomechanism. In medicine and the science of man, the analysis does not work at all – the fact that I can name all the blood vessels and muscles of the human body does not mean that I know who a person is. A person is more than the anatomy of a person.
In theology, then, this approach is utterly pernicious. The European scholar approaches the problem of “God ” as he is accustomed: to look at the subject of analysis from different sides, to try to cut or dissect the object of investigation as far as possible, to see what is inside, and to draw a conclusion. 2 3 Thus we arrive at the definition mentioned above. I believe it is correct, and who knows, perhaps it is helpful to philosophers in their science, but it is useless to us, who ask about God and make sense of things.
Jews look at the issue differently. I am sure you already know that the Jews have the word “God” they dare not utter out of reverence. God is not a philosophical issue for them, but it is above all the God of their history, the one who acts in their nation’s history. “God” is not an abstract God, but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In the Acts of the Apostles, when the deacon Stephen is asked by the Great Council what he believes, he mentions the history of Israel from Abraham to Christ in his speech. The Christian reader yawns in boredom – after all, we already know the stories. But a Jew cannot talk about God. As a philosophical problem, God is not hanging in a vacuum; it is the one that makes up the history of my nation. That’s why there are so many history books in the Old Testament. The books that touch in any way on the history of Israel are vastly outnumbered. Not because the believers have an automatic preference for an account, but the history of the Jews is the history of their relationship with God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
For the Jew, the question about God is a question about the history of his relationship with God. I, the theological dictionary, am aware of this and devotes the last page to God as a mystery: God is “… the basis of any manifold antagonistic reality and a complete mystery”; and ends with the idea of a personal God: “… a free, living, personal God, who has made Himself known to man in the revelation of salvation through Jesus Christ in this very fullness and undiluted love”. Even if I were to hesitate, how does m according to this definition, for example, God conceive of Him and how love differs in meaning from untempered love, we learn information that is more useful for our purpose than in the introduction to the chapter. Thomas Aquinas preferred to write: We cannot understand what God is like, but only what he is not like, so there is a kind of negative definition of the concept of God.
But all these definitions lead us to something very fundamental: God is unimaginable, a mystery, and beyond our imagination. How incomprehensible are his judgments and inscrutable his ways! Writes St. Paul to the Christians in Rome. Who then is God? Let’s use an example from physics: when in 1913, Niels. God’s model of the atom was a model universally understood. It was a sphere that symbolized the nucleus, protons, and neutrons, and at different distances from the heart, other spheres represented electrons. Like different planets, the electrons circle the middle around the middle orbit of the sun. This model, by the way, m still used in high schools and colleges. But it’s not correct, and Niels Bohr knew it very well, but it is an illustrative model we still use successfully. Is that the right word? – electrons do not move in orderly circular orbits but whirl madly around the nucleus in a kind of endless dance. That’s why we define the so-called orbital as the place where we can find an electron with 95% probability. An electron can be elsewhere, for example, on the second Rom 11:33.
But it is less likely. An orbital is a piece of space. Sometimes it resembles a two-drop; other times, we know of stranger formations. But even with its electron, it is not so simple. We don’t know precisely what an electron is. You demonstrate when you build an experiment to prove that the electron is a material particle. When you set up an investigation to confirm that the electron is a wave, the electron will behave like a wave. But that’s not possible: either something is a material particle, or it’s a wave. Or we are very wrong somewhere. That’s why we talk about the dualistic nature of particles. But we still use Bohr’s atom model because we can imagine things using it. Imagine the right phenomena of quantum chemistry; nobody can, at least not yet. It is similar to several discoveries in twentieth-century physics. 

Like every person, we have rights or claims to certain things in our lives. These are either rights that we acquire during our lifetime or requests that we receive at the moment of conception and therefore, as part of our life, no one can take them away from us. But let’s think about it. What about the claim or right to the kingdom of God? Does every person have it, or do they not have it?

In today’s Gospel, we hear the words: “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the puppies. Lord, even puppies eat the crumbs of children under the table.” (Mk 7:27-28).
These words were the words of today’s Gospel dialogue between Christ and the Gentile Syrophoenician woman. But what do these words mean? First of all, it must be said that Jews and Gentiles had no love for each other and that Christ came into this world mainly for the sake of the chosen Jewish people because they were the children of God. Let’s take a closer look at the words Christ used in response to a Gentile woman’s request that He heal her daughter. They are somewhat harsh words, for, in addition to likening the Gentiles to puppies, with these words, He seemed to be saying: “What do you want from me, for you are not of the chosen people, you do not belong to the children of YHWH, and them alone belongs the kingdom of God!” But Christ used these words deliberately. He did not mean to say that he only cared about the Jews because he came for the sake of all people, to bring salvation to all, and to give them a claim to the kingdom of God. Jesus, however, waited to see what the Gentile woman would answer him. And her response? She humbly accepts what Christ has said, but at the same time points out that if the puppies in families are entitled to what falls from the table or the hands of children, even if it is only tiny crumbs, so too are the Gentiles allowed to at least a crumb of the kingdom of God.

So we can see from this Gospel dialogue today that indeed every person has a claim to the kingdom of God, no matter what they are. But not only to the kingdom of God, but also to help, our help. Christ, Himself, gives us an example in this, that we must always help every person if they sincerely ask us to do so, whether they are a Gentile, a homeless person, a gypsy, an enemy, or a neighbor we do not like. But let us think. Are we following in Christ’s footsteps? Do we help those who ask us? And how do we accept or treat those who don’t go to church, who are of another religion, or those who don’t believe in God? Don’t we sometimes alienate them? Don’t we sometimes treat them as the Jews once treated the Gentiles? If so, why? Are they not also children of God? For God created everyone.
To follow in Christ’s footsteps requires, in addition to firm faith, trust, and love, great sacrifice. But not just anyone can do it. Not everyone, like Christ, can accept another, anyone, and help him if he asks for this help, but only he can do it who sees in the other no one else but Christ Himself.

And such was also Mother Teresa. She understood perfectly what Christ asks of each one of us. His example became a daily part of her life, and it showed, for she sacrificed herself as Christ did for others. She came to those who had been alienated by others, to those who had been marginalized, those who no one cared about anymore. She came to their aid. She cared for them, she taught them, she tended their wounds, she built hospitals for them, and she did all of this no matter what kind of person they were because she looked at each one of them as Christ and as a person who was asking for help. And when he asks, that help must be given.

Let us also become like Mother Teresa and thus prove to Christ that he is our model and that we put the example he gave us into practice in our lives.

Let us, therefore, pray at this Holy Mass that during our lifetime, we may not alienate anyone and always be able to welcome any person with love and help anyone who sincerely asks for this help.

Today’s Gospel – if listened to carefully, gives us the feeling that perhaps we have misheard or misunderstood, like “the Pharisees and certain scribes who came down from Jerusalem” (Mk 7:1) who came to see Jesus.

If we can rule out the former, we can equally rule out the latter. That is precisely how Jesus meant it. He is not interested in our Sunday suit, our new clothes, the place we occupy in church… Jesus invites us to look not under our case but “under our skin” – into the human heart. Outward appearances can hide a lot; our behavior in public can give others the impression that they have a decent person in front of them, perhaps even a pious one – by their posture. But we don’t even need to look into the human heart; it is enough to see us at home at work, how we behave towards our wives, our children, our colleagues at work, our subordinates. And this is about our heart. Playing nice, one can do for an hour, but not for a lifetime. One puts off the mask to put it on again at the next celebration in everyday life. How many do I have? I have each one for a different occasion…?
We’re easily capable of deceiving people who do not know us, but not God, interested in our hearts. And he sees there better than we do. “From within, out of the human heart, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, lewdness, chastity, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evils come from within man and defile the man.”

We can already see how useless our “masks,” our acting, are. God reveals us perfectly, and let’s face it: it shames us. Jesus invites us today to take the first step – to stop putting on a show for ourselves, to stop deceiving ourselves, and to look inside ourselves with God’s eyes, and only then will we discover the truth about ourselves. God cannot be fooled; let’s not even try. We can tell ourselves anything, and so can others around us. God invites us to the root of the matter, our hearts – first, we must know the truth about ourselves.
And the truth about God and ourselves is not a scientific theology theory but a matter of relationship: God and self. It is a reality. God himself came to tell us this; we have it captured in the four Gospels. In Revelation. Everything we are to do is there. So, why are we still so far from God’s truth? One reason is the intrusion of human elements into the faith. Our subjective interpretations of the words of the Lord Jesus. This is a real danger in our lives and causes great harm to our fellow man and us. This applies not only to priests but to all of us who are capable of twisting even the words of a priest who is explaining the Word of God to us. The dangers of such attitudes need not be mentioned. From Jesus’ words comes anger and sorrow; thus, it is a serious matter.

He warns us against arbitrary explanations of God’s words, against complacency, against arbitrariness, overestimating human elements in religion, in the liturgy. God’s will remains in the background. This is what Jesus wanted to say to his contemporaries and us as well.
He warns us of one more thing: not making religion a purely cultic affair. Jesus himself said that he did not come to abolish the Jewish faith. He came to fulfill it and purify it of dangerous human elements. He accused the Pharisees of their attention to externals. They observed an outward, almost morbidly external ritual, yet many did not know the nature of the exterior act that was supposed to indicate inward purification. Man has not changed, for even today, man makes the same mistakes as he did two thousand years ago. The primary fault of Jesus’ contemporaries was: neglecting God’s warnings through the prophets. Jesus, therefore, does not abolish everything old but, on the contrary, renews this divine demand and takes up the prophetic fervor against the petty and superficial piety that was exhausted in the renunciation of prayer phrases and the outward dispensation of cultic regulations.

Hypocrites” – Jesus uses a curse word. We say to ourselves, so they were evil people, those Pharisees. Let’s not forget, the gospel was not just addressed to first-century Jews, but all generations, including us. Everybody today knows the word Pharisee, Pharisaic. We mean – the action of a person pretending and being insincere. And we use it even today, that is, we know very well that a Pharisee – this is not a man of antiquity, this is the image of man. Hypocrisy is any action that puts man’s actions above God’s law. Hypocrisy was likewise religious zeal, especially in ritual purity, whereby God’s laws were grossly violated.
The highest degree of this hypocrisy was: the direct suppression of God’s commandments by false piety at the expense of the duty of love to one’s neighbor, as if the end sanctified the means.

We all know the story of the merciful Samaritan and the unmerciful priest and Levite who went to serve God in the temple but refused to help the wounded man. Jesus is not making up fairy tales, but he is well aware of the situation around him and raises his finger in warning, “See, this is as far as human willfulness can go.” Therefore, when a certain scribe asks what is the essential part of the Law, Jesus replies, “You are a scribe and do not know this? Thou shalt love God with all thy might…and thy neighbor as thyself.” No wonder the scribe couldn’t figure out the tangle of prohibitions and commands, so the point was lost. Only Jesus points out what is the reason for the cult and religion. It is love. And it doesn’t take a scholarship to do that. We see how this scholarship was a trap for the scribes and Pharisees. Hats off, at least, to those who could ask Jesus what the truth was. It was worse with those who thought they knew everything and didn’t need anyone to advise them. Yes, the real danger is the pride that caused the chosen people to fail to recognize the Truth when it came into the world.
The same thing can happen to us. We may say of Jesus that we are His disciples, but our hearts will be hostile to God Himself because we are making God in our image.

The Lord Jesus antagonized the highest circles in Israel. In the same way, we also become God’s enemies when we commit the mistakes mentioned above. Jesus Himself says this in another place: “It will not help you that you have served me, that you have eaten and drunk with me. Depart, you who practice iniquity” (cf. Lk. 13:26-27).

Every leader is threatened by the temptation of hypocrisy in some form. It is easy to pass off one’s plans and opinions as God’s clear will for all against subordinates. It is inappropriate to facilitate the art of education by pointing to one’s gifts of the Holy Spirit where factual and rational reasons are in place. And it would also be irresponsible and gravely sinful to knowingly substitute human opinions for God’s commandments.

Jesus was a man sought after by simple people, but learned men also gladly debated him – the scribes and Pharisees. However, many things bothered the Pharisees. One of them was that his disciples did not wash their hands before eating. Jesus replies to them, “Isaiah prophesied well of you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they honor me, for what they teach are the commands of men. You forsake the commandments of God and cling to the traditions of men.”
When Jesus answers the Pharisees’ question with a quotation from Isaiah, it may have initially given the impression that He was rebuking mere superficiality. However, the following verses show that there is a more significant issue at stake: “You are abrogating God’s commandments and clinging to human traditions.” Thus, the real problem is not the washing of hands but the traditions they have created within Judaism – for God’s sake. But why did the Pharisees disturb God’s word with their traditional washing? Because by doing so, they were preventing the evil that makes man incapable of fellowship with God, which comes from the human heart! No food is unclean. Nothing created that man can make a man dirty. Only one’s own heart is capable of alienating man from God.

The Pharisees added various explanations to these regulations. The Pharisees added different answers to these regulations until it all became formalism and led to hypocrisy in the Pharisees’ faith. We know that the Lord Jesus came into conflict with the law teachers concerning fasting and the keeping of the Sabbath, the day of rest.

It is a fundamental question whether it is permissible to nullify God’s commandment to preserve tradition in the Gospel. Jesus is clear that God’s commandments must not be broken. Practice must give way. We see this when he stands up for his disciples, who did not maintain ceremonial purity and did not keep the tradition of their ancestors, which said that they must wash before they ate. Jesus reveals to them a solemn fact. The Pharisees were very particular about outward observance, but they could justify themselves inwardly. He told them: “You know how to abolish the commandments of God to keep your customs.” (Mk 7:9). And immediately, he also gives them the proof. Moses said: “Honor thy father and thy mother” and, “He that curses father or mother shall surely be put to death.” (Mk 7:10). But you say, “When a man says to his father or mother, ‘Korban,’ which means that all I have to help you with is a sacrifice,” you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or mother. And you are nullifying the Word of God because of the customs you are passing on. And many other similar things you do” (Mk 7:11-13).

For the Jews at the time of Christ had a custom, or tradition, of giving to God by vow what they were to provide for the support of their parents. In this way, the son could free himself from the obligation to rear his parents and withhold all their material support. The burden of such a vow was considered more potent than the natural duty to care for and provide for parents. The action of the scribes was often a mockery of all justice. Mark had to describe these Jewish matters to us to understand the rightness of the Lord Jesus’ actions. For we also know from the Gospel these words of the Lord Jesus, “Think not that I am come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” (Mt 5:17). We see that the Lord Jesus sets the record straight when He says that tradition, which men have invented, must give way before the commandments of God.

Sadly, even in our day, some would like the Ten Commandments of God to be non-existent, or at least to be publicly proclaimed as ineffective and meaningless. They demand this because they do not keep the Ten Commandments, they circumvent them, and therefore their conscience speaks to them. But then some come to Holy Communion, but their heart is far from what they are doing. But the Ten Commandments have a certain solemnity and importance even today, as they had in the days of Moses.

Even in our times, the world needs to return to its fulfillment. Even as Jesus himself brought it to completion when he declared, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. That you also love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 13:34). Even the Gospel can be misunderstood, and we see only commands and prohibitions in it. Therefore, we must not think that we are good Christians when we outwardly fulfill what the Ten Commandments and Christian morality command us. However, all this is not enough to be saved, but we must, first of all, live our faith inwardly and outwardly.

We must not speak of taste or a bad taste in keeping the commandments. We must keep the command even when it is the least attractive.

He was immediately healed after touching at least the hem of his garment, after touching at least the hem of his garment, was immediately healed. Let us recall the woman who suffered from bleeding for twelve years. She had squandered her entire fortune, and the people did not cure her; on the contrary, her health was even worse. This woman, in her faith, also came to the idea that all she had to do was touch at least the hem of Jesus’ garment, and she would be healed. Indeed, after touching Jesus, she immediately felt a change in her sick body.

What should we not overlook in the miraculous healing that the Lord Jesus performed? The Lord Jesus must be “touched with faith,” that is, the Lord Jesus is the true Messiah, the Son of God, and if this is not the motive for touching Jesus, there will be no healing. Sometimes hearing the texts of Holy Scripture about these miraculous healing fills some believers with sorrow. They mourn that Jesus does not live among us today, that the Church is no longer a place where such rallies can take place as they did in the days of the Lord Jesus. But they mourn in vain. They do not understand that Jesus must be “touched,” that is, we must believe that He can truly help us today.

We, after all, even at this Mass, have the opportunity to touch the Lord Jesus, not just the hem of the garment, but we can take him home in Holy Communion or to those for whom we have come to pray. And why are these touches without miracles? Let us not look for faults in Jesus and the Church, instead let us look at ourselves! We believe that Christ is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever. Christ is equally strong and suitable to all. The fault, however, is in us. Do we trust him? Do we touch Christ when we stand in our place during communion? We stand and look at those who approach Holy Communion. Or even when we close Holy Communion, we touch Him without faith; that is, there is not one hundred percent conviction in us that Jesus can and wants to give it to us. What? Our healing.

We know that in addition to the Body we receive in the Sacrament, He has another Body – a mystical Body that we form with each other as brothers and sisters. This means that we are also to be aware that when we touch this Body of Christ unpleasantly, for example, with an evil look, an angry, malicious, or slanderous word, and then we go to Holy Communion. With the same tongue, which has not yet been cleansed by sincere repentance and a resolve to repair the damage, I want to touch the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Can we then expect a benefit? Not!

Well, brothers and sisters, in such a case, indeed, the grace of the Lord Jesus cannot be expected to aid in healing, and it is no wonder that we continue to be sick in body and soul despite the frequent repetition of these touches. God can only be effectively touched by faith, but only a living faith that expresses itself in acts of forgiving and serving love. He only heals those who feel Him. If we have grasped this, we have already become wealthy spiritually. We admire the examples of the saints; we appreciate the personalities of spiritual life who live among us. Why? From their lives, we can directly feel how they touch God. Their faith is not just words; it is a sincere relationship with God! God is pleased that we come to ask. After all, He said it Himself: “Ask, and you shall receive! Seek and ye shall find! Knock and it will be opened to you!” (Mt. 7:7). But we must remember that if we want to receive from Jesus what we ask for, we must also give Christ what he wants from us, namely, our hearts, without pretense.