Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 7, 2024

Mark 7, 14-23

Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”  When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) “But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”

We humans gather information about the world in which we live through our five senses.  In this way we learn discursively, that is, step by step.  We cannot comprehend a person or a thing at a single glance: that is how the angels, spiritual intellects, know.  However, most of us mistakenly believe that we can size up a person or a thing almost immediately.  We base this notion on our abilities to perceive accurately through our senses and to  interpret correctly the information we receive through them, and we have all had the experience of being proven wrong in doing this.  If we are honest with ourselves, we accept this.  If our pride gets the best of us, we persist in scrutinizing the person or thing with the goal of proving ourselves right, no matter how many lies we have to tell ourselves.  This is a universal experience, reflected in such proverbs as, “Appearances are deceiving.”  The Lord Jesus warns us of wolves in sheep’s clothing: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7, 15).

The truth of this underlies the Lord’s words, “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”  In St. Mark’s account, the Lord has just rebuked the Pharisees for their insistence on ritual washings that do not actually confer purity, as they are not commanded by God but originate in the customs of their own sect.  The Lord goes further here, addressing the condition of a person who eats or drinks from a vessel not subjected to the ritual washing: he teaches that no exterior thing can make a person unclean.  On the other hand, the things that come out from a person, meaning, that originate in the person so as to affect that person and others, defile or make unclean.  The Lord enumerates these things: “evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.”  More literally, from the Greek: plotting, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, the evil eye, scurrilous talk, pride, and foolishness.  The word I have translated as “formication” has the sense of any of the sexual sins listed in the Mosaic Law.  The word I have translated as “wickedness” has the sense of a malign disposition, a eagerness to cause others pain.  “Foolishness” implies a self-absorption that blinds a person to the dignity and needs of others.  The temptations of the devil may come from the outside of a person, but the consent to them that results in sin takes place on the inside.  And these sins do defile.  They truly degrade and deform even when they do not result in a change in the exterior appearance.  They cause a person to become unworthy of grace and incapable of attaining heaven.  

The world values appearances.  It rewards the pretty, the handsome, the sleek, the well-dressed, the sonorous voice.  These can be exploited for wealth, fame, and power.  Virtue cannot because it is of itself self-effacing and unglamorous.  It is found in very ordinary and even lowly places.  It works quietly.  Its results often take time to appear.  It is the life-blood of the saints.