2019 02 12 Reflection 466 (Fr. Francis Akkara OP on Mk 7:1-13)
Like us on facebook at / dominicanministriesgoa write to us: [email protected] Website: www.dominicans.in ‘This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me.’ My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,We all usually celebrate the feast of our parishes with great interest. We get the best preachers for the novenas, we decorate the church with such creativity and beautiful lightings that it is really a wonderful thing to watch. These ways of celebrations were started by our ancestors as a means to unite the whole church community to build up not only our relationships at the level of the whole parish but also to grow with a sense of belongingness as to whom we actually belong to. But over the years we have seen a transformation of these celebrations. The decoration and the preparations for the feast at least in most of the cases are no longer an occasion where families come together to celebrate the heavenly birth of their patron saint but rather these works are handed over to the professional decorators, it may serve the purpose of having a decent celebration, but the whole meaning for what it came into being is being lost. Rather than building up the church community these very so called ways of celebrating the feast has become a cause for disunity among families and various other church organizations in the parish. The whole point is my dear friends the true meaning for what a particular tradition was started like in this case begins to get eroded away and we remain with our traditions, fighting for the traditions of the church without realizing the true meaning behind it all. In the gospel today we see something similar experienced by Jesus when the Pharisees questions him as to why the disciples were eating with unclean hands and Jesus gives them a fitting reply saying ‘this people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me’ Jesus today tries to highlight to us to follow the rules and traditions in the light of its true meaning which has not just been eroding away during the time of the Pharisees but even today. And therefore today Jesus is asking each one of us are you like those people who honor me with their lips but hearts far away from God? are we like those who spend hours and hours of prayer so as to keep up the tradition but not one word coming from a true praying heart? Are we like those scrupulous Pharisees who have even a problem when a tiny statue of a particular saint moved from one place to another? If we have such problems then my dear friends we have a lot of catching up to do because our hearts are still far away from God. so this day let us free ourselves from these bondages of scrupulosity and understand and love God in the very eyes of Jesus who shows us through the gospel today the way the truth and the life. Amen.
