Tuesday, 11th February

Mark 7:1–13

Now
when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus,
they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that
is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat
unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the
elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and
there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups,
pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do
your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with
defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you
hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honours me with their lips, but
their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human
precepts as doctrines.’  You abandon the
commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Then he said to them, “You
have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your
tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honour your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever
speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ But you say that if anyone
tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’
(that is, an offering to God)— then you no longer permit doing anything for a
father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that
you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”

 

Reflection

How
often do I focus my attention on minor issues rather than
the love of God? 

Talk to Jesus about an experience of mine that made
void the word of God through rigid adherence to a tradition.