PURIFY YOUR HEARTS

Tuesday of Fifth Week in Ordinary Time Year C Mark 7:1-13 Our gospel speaks about ritual purity:sanitary concerns. The Scribes and Pharisees questioning Jesus for violating their tradition and practice of purity-washing hands before meals. It is very clear for Jesus that it is not what goes into our mouths that makes us unclean. Friends, the gospel is telling us that the problem is not the stomach but the heart. Sanitize your hands but never forget to purify your hearts. Cleanliness is not only an external concerns but primarily on internals affairs too. If we are clean externally but dirty internally that is hypocrisy. For Jesus, if we want to know the things that defiles us let us look into our hearts. I hate to say this but my dear friends, if our hands are clean but we are stealing stuff we dont own, we are dirty. If our hands are pretty but our thoughts are adulterous, lustful possess a pornographic memory, we are dirty. If our hands are spotless but we are malicious, greedy slanderous, dishonest and gossipers, we are dirty. Remember this: sin does not begin in the stomach but it starts in the hearts. What we eat may make us dirty but it won’t make us a sinner. Its unhealty but not unholy. Cleansing our hands does not make our hearts pure. Friends, moral cleanliness is more important than ritual purity. I love people with dirty hands than people with dirty mouth. Today be cautious with someone whose actions does not match with their words. What defiles a person is his own actions no the food he eats. Sorry to say this: It is hypocrisy when we are smiling but deep within we are upset and angry. We are fake if we praise the Lord but cursing other people. It is hypocrisy if we are praying in the church but swearing at home. It is hypocrisy when we say I love you but our actions shows hurts and hate. Hypocrites claim to know God but their actions deny Him. Hypocrites love to wear white robes but live in darkness. Hypocrites have clean hands but with dirty hearts. “This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Fellow sinners our heart needs help of heaven. Let us cry out to Jesus right now and ask Him to make us clean both in and out. Amen! Blessings Fr. Jhack