Daily Reflection for Wednesday February 10, 2021
Peace and Blessings, Friends and Parishioners!
We encourage you to reflect on Wednesday’s readings at this link:
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/021021.cfm
If you prefer to use your own Bible, the readings are:
First Reading: Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-17
Responsorial: Psalm 104:1-2a, 27-28, 29bc-30
Gospel: Mark 7:14-23
Our reflection on Wednesday’s readings:
“He said to them, Are even you without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile …" Mark 7:18
Jesus sure has a way of making me think and process life differently. Such a reminder that He came not to be of this world but to point us to God’s world.
I find such a connection today in the first reading from Genesis and the Gospel. The Genesis story is the story of creation, from the perspective of all that God provided in the Garden of Eden. This passage concludes with the placement of man in the garden with the instruction to not eat from the tree of knowledge. From my very simple viewpoint, God was clearly saying that He had provided all that man needed. As God formed him, He gave him his inner spirit and his desire to be connected to his creator.
In the Gospel, Jesus is removing the Old Testament notion that it is food that is unclean. It is not what goes into a man’s stomach that causes problems. It is what comes out of his heart and spirit. I find myself smiling a bit as I picture Jesus looking at His disciples for the understanding He is certain they should be grasping by now. Like me, they apparently did not always grasp the heart of the message from the first telling.
Jesus wants to ensure that the disciples caught the meaning, the heart, of the message He was preaching that day. He is establishing a new way of thinking. He is challenging us to look inside our own hearts and spirits for the sin that occurs in our lives. When we open ourselves to allowing hate, envy, greed, or any number of vices to be our voice, we defile the spirit which God placed in us from our beginning.
So much of the common view of the world in which we live encourages us to look for eternal reasons and causes for our unrest or negative thoughts. Today, I am feeling called to dig a little deeper inside myself to see what my “center” holds. Do I open myself to the radical message preached by Jesus in His Gospels or do I lean into the things of this world? If what I treasure in my heart is love of money, power, position, or self-importance, then this is what the world will see of me. If I allow myself to share the spirt God placed in me, then perhaps the world will see and hear more peace, love, and acceptance from my life.
What has God placed in your inner spirit to share with others?
In Heartfelt Joy,
Lynne Brennan