Sunday September 1, 2024

Of greatest importance are the Commandments of God, the Moral Laws, which never change. All of them help us on our journey to heaven.

Good News Reflection for:

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 1, 2024

Today’s Prayer:

Lord Jesus: May Your Spirit fill all my being, and may Your Word take its place in me. May all my works, thoughts and words fulfill the purpose You planned for me. Amen.

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Today’s Readings:

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8
Ps 15:2-5
James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090124.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/daily-mass-reading-podcast-september-1-2024

Honoring God with our hearts

In the Gospel reading this Sunday, Jesus chastises the Pharisees for honoring God only with their lips while their hearts were far from him; love was missing from their analysis of whether or not Jesus and his disciples had sinned when they disobeyed a Jewish rule about cleanliness.

The rule was more important to them then the person. They had the self-righteous attitude of: “I know better than you, and I am better than you, proven by the fact that I obey the laws that you’re breaking.”

Obedience, when motivated by a self-righteous adherence to rules, is hypocrisy. It uses the law as an opportunity to feel superior to others. A modern example might be when someone tells a priest that he is sinning because he isn’t adhering exactly to the norms for Mass as prescribed in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. If he or she doesn’t stop to understand why the priest believes the adaptations are allowable and pastoral, who really is the sinner?

When this happens, “in vain do they worship me,” Jesus says. The meaning of the Mass has been lost.

There is a hierarchy of rules and laws. Some rules change with the needs of the times. Of greatest importance are the Commandments of God, the Moral Laws, which never change. All of them are supposed to help us on our journey to heaven.

It is right to speak up when we witness disobedience, and we should do it, but only because we care about the sinner’s spiritual growth and only when we can handle it without ignoring or overlooking the reasons behind the disobedience. We are most successful in guiding others into greater holiness when we take the time to first understand the roots of their disobedience and then address those concerns with love.

This is how we become, as the second reading says, “doers of the word and not hearers only”, because, as James adds, “pure” religion is caring for others. The Pharisees in the Gospel story didn’t care about the hunger of the disciples.

Questions for Personal Reflection:
How do you know when you’re being hypocritical in your faith? How do you handle the discovery that you’ve done something uncaring?

Questions for Community Faith Sharing:
Give an example of a Moral Law and an example of a regulation that was instituted by the Church to address a specific need for a specific time. How do they differ in importance? Name one of the 10 Commandments or a teaching of the Church and explain how it became an opportunity for you to become more like Christ.

For more on this, use our WordByte called, “Polite or Prophetic?” @ https://wordbytes.org/evangelization-ministry/polite-or-prophetic/.

© by Terry A. Modica, Good News Ministries

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