Monday in the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time, February 16, 2025

James 1, 1-11

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, greetings. Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it. But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways. The brother in lowly circumstances should take pride in high standing, and the rich one in his lowliness, for he will pass away “like the flower of the field.” For the sun comes up with its scorching heat and dries up the grass, its flower droops, and the beauty of its appearance vanishes. So will the rich person fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

James the son of Alphaeus played an important role in the early Church. He governed the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem for decades after the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. We learn from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians as well as from the Acts of the Apostles of his firmness in the morality taught by the Jewish Law. Nis influence reached far beyond Jerusalem and the Holy Land into Syria and Asia Minor, causing even Peter to yield to it.  At the same time, James, with Peter and John, wrote a letter to the Gentile Christians making it plain that they were not bound by the Jewish Law, including that of circumcision. 

In his Letter, written from Jerusalem to Christian communities in Syria and Asia Minor, presumably to those with strong Numbers of converted Jews among them, James shows the seamless transition of the moral code handed on by Moses and the Prophets and fulfilled by the Lord Jesus. Much more than Paul, who wrote primarily to churches dominated by Gentile Christians who were still learning the basics of the Faith, James emphasizes Christian social teaching and outreach to the poor in his Letter.

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” From this simple heading it is evident that the recipients of this Letter already knew and respected the Apostle. He does not feel the need to identify himself as “the brother of the Lord” as St. Paul calls him, nor does he say that he is the son of Alphaeus. For those to whom he he writes, he is simply “James”.

“Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials.” James opens his Letter with encouragement for those suffering “trials” for their faith. The Greek word translated here as “trials” can mean juridical trials in courts as well as temptations and testings. These Christians, a distinct minority in their cities, were also a minority among their fellow (and unconverted) Jews. Their trials would have come not from the citizens of the cities they inhabited but from these unconverted Jews. Examples of this abound in the Acts of the Apostles. James counsels perseverance, teaching them that they are the true descendants of Abraham who should prove this by adhering to the example of faith and morality which he passed on.

“But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it.” The “wisdom” here is the gift of prudence which will enable the Jewish Christian, living amongst his fellow emigres, to deal with them in such a way that they may live in peace with them and not arouse their opposition to their faith in Jesus, and at the same time to act as Christians, confident in their faith.

“But he should ask in faith, not doubting.” James speaks of prayer, and the necessity of believing that God will provide for them. To ask in faith is not exercising a magic power, however, or to take for granted God’s willingness to help. Rather, it is an attitude which allows a person to be receptive and grateful for all that God wants to do for the asker.  God does not give to one who doubts his power, or to one who will misuse his gift, or to one who will not return thanks. It is not because God is stingy, but because the asker has made himself incapable of the reception of God’s gracious gifts. 

“The brother in lowly circumstances should take pride in high standing, and the rich one in his lowliness.” Much of the remainder of this Letter has to do with the poor, with the Christian recognizing that he is poor before God, despite what he possesses, and that we should share what we have with those who are starving in the streets. It is the plea of Jesus who tells the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man: Feed the poor, lest you yourself wind up begging even for water, and for all eternity.

In today’s Gospel Reading, the Lord Jesus bewails those whom in the very time of his coming and surrounded by men and women who have been healed of the most serious illnesses and infirmities, still want “a sign”: but as the early Christians to whom St. James wrote knew, the time for signs is over. Now is the time of the One to whom  the signs of the Prophets pointed. 

The Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 15, 2026

Matthew 5, 17–37

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven. I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny. You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna.  It was also said, Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce. But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife—unless the marriage is unlawful— causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow. But I say to you, do not swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black. Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.”

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” 

Jesus speaks these words at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount. He has just proclaimed the Beatitudes — blessings that sound at once ancient and startlingly new. And so he anticipates the objection: Is this a replacement? Is this a revolution against Moses? He answers before anyone can accuse him.

“Do not think.” There is tenderness in that opening phrase. He knows how quickly human beings jump to conclusions. He knows that whenever something higher appears, we assume the lower must be rejected. But Christ does not destroy foundations. He builds upward from them. He is not an iconoclast standing before Sinai with a hammer. He is the Architect revealing what Sinai was always pointing toward.

“The Law and the Prophets.” For a first-century Jew, this phrase meant the whole of divine revelation — from Moses to Malachi. The commandments, the sacrifices, the psalms, the promises, the warnings. Nothing in Israel’s history was accidental. The Law formed a people. The Prophets purified and corrected them. The rituals trained their imagination. The moral precepts disciplined desire. The entire Old Covenant was a preparation. And preparation is not abolished when fulfillment arrives. It is completed.

 “Not to abolish but to fulfill” The Greek word plērōsai (“to fulfill”) is richer than the English equivalent. It does not merely mean “to obey” or “to finish.” It means to fill to the brim, to bring to fullness, to make complete. Christ fulfills the Law in several profound ways: he fulfills it personally. He keeps it perfectly: where Israel failed, he succeeds. Where Adam fell, he stands. The Law’s demand for righteousness finds its perfect embodiment in Him. He fulfills it in terms of it being a sign: every sacrifice, every Passover lamb, every priestly offering pointed toward Him. When He offers Himself on the Cross, the sacrificial system is not contradicted — it is consummated. In addition, he fulfills it morally: he deepens the commandments. Not only, “You shall not kill,” but “Do not harbor anger.” Not only, “You shall not commit adultery,” but “Do not look with lust.” He moves from the exterior act to the interior heart. The Law engraved on stone becomes the Law written within.

The Lord’s fulfillment of the Law  does not relax it; it intensifies it. Sometimes people imagine that “fulfillment” means softening. But in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ does not lower the standard — he raises it to divine proportions. Moses said: Be holy. Christ says: Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. The Old Law restrained evil. The new Law transforms the person.

Many Catholics today feel a tension between “law” and “love.” They imagine that rules belong to an inferior stage and that Christ frees us from structure. But Christ frees us from sin, not from meaning. He frees us from condemnation, not from truth. He frees us from doing only what is exterior, not from actual holiness. The commandments are not chains; they are scaffolding. Christ does not tear down the scaffolding — he finishes the building.

Sometimes we want to abolish parts of our past — our mistakes, our awkward beginnings, even our earlier devotions. Christ does not abolish our story. He fulfills it. None of it is wasted. It is all preparatory. Grace does not erase nature; it perfects it.

We can think of a bud in spring. If someone said, “The flower has abolished the bud,” we would smile. The bud has not been destroyed. It has become what it was meant to be. So too the Law in Christ. And so too the human heart in grace.

Saturday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 14, 2026

Mark 8, 1-10

In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat, Jesus summoned the disciples and said, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.” His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?” Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They replied, “Seven.” He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute, and they distributed them to the crowd. They also had a few fish. He said the blessing over them and ordered them distributed also. They ate and were satisfied. They picked up the fragments left over — seven baskets. There were about four thousand people. He dismissed the crowd and got into the boat with his disciples and came to the region of Dalmanutha.

“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.” Jesus had stayed in the wilderness with the crowd for three days. If we count the days as the Jews did, we see that they might have come together in the late afternoon, and the late afternoon until sunset would have counted as one day. The second day, beginning at the sunset after the first day, would have continued until sunset of the following day. Then the third day would have begun and continued. Jesus may have broken off his preaching around the customary time for the midday meal, the biggest meal of the day. Thus, the people need not have gone hungry for three entire days as we count them in the West, but this remains something to marvel at: a large crowd gathers to hear the word of a Galilean carpenter, untaught by the Pharisees or anyone else. They count it as little that they rush out of their towns and villages without preparations in order to see and listen to him. And they do not leave when they become hungry. They stay, as if to echo Peter’s words earlier after the feeding of the five thousand: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known that you are the Christ, the Son of God” (John 69-70).

Let us see what Jesus is doing here. Matthew 15, 29 provides the context: The Lord came near the Sea of Galilee and went up a high mountain to teach. When people here that Jesus is near, they flock to him from all sides, hurrying because there is no telling how long he will stay in the region before moving on. Some of these folks come from no little distance, perhaps even from the northern parts of Judea. At a certain point, Jesus begins to teach, speaking of the Kingdom of God and the need for repentance to enter it. Just as in the Sermon on the Mount, he speaks little of himself but much of those who would follow him. The people are mesmerized. He does not quote other rabbis or the Pharisees but speaks on his own authority. His words find a home in the hearts of those who listen. The Lord teaches until sunset. The Apostles has seven loaves and some fish by the third day so it is not impossible that they ate at the end of the first day or during the second day but tradition does not tell us. The second day was spent entirely in teaching, and there seemed not much time for eating. But the fact that the people remained tells us a great deal about how the people soaked up the Lord’s words. They clung to him, unwilling either to leave or to allow Jesus to leavee. They were like Mary of Bethany: “One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10, 42). They people knew that but one thing was necessary — the Word of God — and they did not want to lose it.

“They have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.” The Lord has held the crowd for this length of time. He could have fed them after the first day, or during the second, or at the beginning of the third, but he does not. We might wonder about this. He could, but he does not. Something greater than feeding the crowd is happening. Jesus allows the people to make this sacrifice in order to hear him. Grace does not come without participation on our part. He teaches us this. He teaches also to put hearing his word comes before everything else in life, including what we consider necessities or as natural: “He who loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10, 37). He allows them to feel their need for him.

And then he feeds them because he knows they need to eat, and he gives them more food than they can consume. This signifies the grace he knows we stand in need of to carry out God’s will and to gain salvation, and so ardently does the Lord desire us to be saved that he provides an overabundance of it to us:  “A good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over shall they give into your bosom” (Luke 10, 38). All we have to do is hold the aprons of our hearts open and he will feed us, and leave enough for us to feed others too.

Friday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 13, 2026

Mark 7, 31-37

Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. They were exceedingly astonished and they said, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

The Lord takes a bit of a circuitous route to return to Galilee.  He left Tyre and proceeded north to Sidon, and then east and then south to the country around Damascus, which is where the events in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass seems to take place.  The region at that time was inhabited mostly by Arameans and other semites, but was dominated by the Greek and Roman culture of its ten major cities, which enjoyed a special status within the Roman Empire.  Now, due to the grammar of the verse describing the Lord’s movements, some of the Fathers concluded that this miracle did not take place in the Decapolis itself but in Galilee near the frontier.  This actually makes more sense than if if it had taken place in the Decapolis, since the people who learned of the healing reacted as though they had seen his miracles before.

“And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him.”  They brought the man to him because they wished to see a miracle, as we see from the fact that Jesus took the man apart from them — something he did not do otherwise.  This man suffered from a double infirmity.  His deafness and speech impediment may have come to him at once through a head injury, or he may have been born with a speech impediment and then lost his hearing in childhood.  The impediment may have been a stutter or an inability to form any coherent sound at all.  “He took him off by himself away from the crowd.”  Despite the crowd’s vulgar desire to see miracles, the Lord desired to heal the man out of his compassion for him.  Evidently, he took him out of the range of the crowd’s hearing, or even out of their sight, perhaps on the other side of a hill.  “He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue.”  These gestures of the Lord are highly unusual, and since they are unnecessary, strictly speaking, for the cure, he must be teaching the Apostles through this sign.  The use of the saliva may be related to an earlier verse in Mark’s Gospel in which the Evangelist tells us that people sought to be cured of their maladies by touching even the fringe of his mantle.  The point is that the power of the Lord Jesus was such that it extended even to his tassels and his saliva.  

“Then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ ” (that is, “Be opened!”).  This is an Aramaic word.  The fact that Mark gives us the exact word that Jesus spoke here is a testament to how its use must have struck St. Peter, who related the miracle to Mark long afterwards.  Mark’s quoting the word, even without the translation, does not make sense unless it had some special meaning for his original — Greek-speaking — audience.  This special meaning undoubtedly came from its use in a baptismal ritual Peter himself used.  In the ancient baptismal rite of the Church, which was altered in the early 1970’s, before the baptism the priest touches the nostrils (in place of the lips) and the ears of the candidate for baptism, moistened with his saliva, at the same time saying, “Ephphatha which means, be opened.”  The new rite of baptism also includes the touching of the person’s ears and lips, though after the baptism and without the priest’s saliva, but without the Ephphatha.  Instead, the priest says to the newly baptized: “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.”  The loss of the Aramaic word is unfortunate because its use was ancient.  More importantly, it was used not only to address the candidate for baptism, but also heaven.  “Be opened” was a command from the priest as alter Christus, telling the heavens to open for the one about to be baptized. 

“And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.”  There is no period of recovery.  The Lord’s power is instant and completely effective.  The people of the crowd will acknowledge this when they say, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”  

“He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it.”  Jesus gives the gifts of hearing and speaking to the man without condition.  His gifts are as free as they are complete.  But he does warn the crowd to not spread the news of the cure around.  The Lord may have given this order for a number of reasons.  As when he commanded demons not to speak about him “because they knew him”, the Lord may not have desired the testimony of these particular people.  This would speak to their character, of which we gain some insight due to the fact that they disobeyed the command of the one who had shown such mercy.  But the Lord lavishes his gifts upon the unworthy as well as on those who truly love him because the nature of love is to love without expecting to be loved in return.

Thursday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 12, 2026

Mark 7, 24-30

Jesus went to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

St. Matthew also recounts this episode in his Gospel (15, 22-28).  From his account, the woman began by following the Lord on the road and calling after him.  It seems, from St. Mark’s version, that she followed him to the house in which he was staying at the time, and spoke to him there.  

Mark prefaces his account by saying that “[the Lord] entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice.”  It is noteworthy that he (1) went up to Tyre, which was gentile territory, and (2) was staying at “a house”.  Matthew says that he “withdrew” or “departed” to this country, but he does not explain why anymore than Mark does.  At the same time, he must have stayed at the house of a fellow Jew.  Because he “wanted no one to know” that he was there, he does not seem to have preached in any synagogues in the area, so he would not have met any fellow Jews who might have invited him to stay with him.

Despite the Lord’s desire for anonymity, “he could not escape notice”.  News of the Jew who performed miracles and drove out demons had gone out far and wide.  We read in Matthew 4, 24 that even in his early ministry, “his fame went throughout all Syria.”  This would have included the land of Tyre and Sidon.  Perhaps some who had come to Galilee from this foreign land to be cured by him told about him when they returned to their homes, and then recognized him on the streets when he arrived there and pointed him out to others.  Perhaps the lesson the Lord meant to teach his Apostles here was that with the beginning of their preaching after Pentecost, the Faith he was handing on to them would spread like wildfire throughout the world, and that they would enter a region for the first time and find that believers already existed there.  This is a result of “casting seed”: the farmer casts it in all directions and harvests it wherever it grows.  

“Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him.”  We know from previous accounts in Mark that wherever the Lord went in Galilee, crowds gathered quickly with their sick — even anticipating his arrival in places.  No tendency to reticence prevented anyone from bringing their sick or otherwise afflicted relatives and friends to him.  People even came together to carry the lame to him.  A single sighting of the Lord proved sufficient to throw a whole area into upheaval as folks rushed to him from all sides.  The same might have been expected in this gentile land as well, but even if the Lord’s reputation had become known this far from home, only this woman approached him for help.  

Mark does not tell us, as Matthew does, that the Apostles attempted to have the Lord send her away.  His interest is simply in what transpired between the Lord and this woman and so he streamlines his account.  Now, we notice here that the woman came by herself.  Like the centurion who came to Jesus on behalf of his slave, who was sick, or Jairus, who went to him for his daughter, this woman comes for one who cannot come herself, so terrible is her condition.  Perhaps this girl is tied up as the man possessed by Legion had been, though it had not lasted long in his case.  Binding a demon-possessed person or a lunatic was in those days the last-ditch method of preventing their harming themselves or others.  It was an ancient form of the sedation through drugs we use today.  “She came and fell at his feet.”  She, the heir of the proud Phoenician culture, humbled herself before a Jew from the hinterland, and begged for his help.  Her posture is one adopted before the eastern kings who were acclaimed as semi-divine, or as a slave before her master.  She offered true homage to him as had not been offered anywhere else he had gone.  We do not see the people of Capernaum doing this before him.  Jesus tested her homage, not because he doubted it, but to make this point to his Apostles: “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”  The woman, remaining on the ground before him and covering her head, as was the practice, accepted his calling her a “dog”, for as she had humbled herself as a slave, she showed that she was willing to be addressed as such, if only he would deign to speak to her at all.

  She bravely replied, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”  Jesus did not keep her in suspense.  “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.”  He dismisses her, with her request granted.  She comes to him as a slave, believing that all, including the demons, were likewise his slaves.  He need not render himself unclean by entering her house to help her daughter; he need only give the command, even from afar, and it would be carried out.  

And then she went home, backing out of the house from before Jesus because one never showed one’s back to a king or a master.  Hurrying home at all speed, “she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.”  Jesus had rewarded her faith.  And it was true faith, greater than anyone that had been shown the Lord to this point in Israel, for this is the first time in the Gospel of St. Mark that anyone had addressed Jesus as “Lord”.  

Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 11, 2026

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.”

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass follows immediately after that for yesterday’s Mass.  The Lord Jesus had answered the complaint made by the Pharisees that his Apostles did not ritually purify their hands before eating, as though they were priests offering sacrifice in the Temple.  The Lord rejected their attempt to force people to abide by their interpretation of the Mosaic Law which in fact contradicted that Law.  Now, he seizes the occasion to teach the Apostles and the crowd the true meaning of impurity, as opposed to the ritual impurity that so concerned the Pharisees.

“Hear me, all of you, and understand.”  The Lord gains the people’s attention and makes it clear that what he is about to tell them is important for them to hear.  He has just overthrown the false teaching of the Pharisees, but he is not interested in scoring points off them.  His zeal for the souls of all people compels him to speak of the evil of sin, and the evil caused by sin, for their own good.  “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”  This must have come as a great revelation at the time.  Jewish life was bound up with exterior actions, performing a prescribed act correctly and at the right time.  These actions, including circumcision, keeping the Sabbath, and the purity laws, identified a person as a Jew.  Proper behavior, then, came out of a sense of duty, and of the desire to belong to the Chosen People.  The Lord spoke during his Sermon on the Mount that attitude and rightness of intention mattered at least as much as exterior actions, identifying lustful thoughts as acts of adultery if no actions outside the mind resulted.  He continues that line of teaching here, emphasizing the evil that afflicted the sinner long after the sin was committed.

“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?”  The Lord rephrases his pint here as the Apostles show slowness to understand.  He compares sin to food.  A person cannot be defiled by another’s sin, nor by thoughts or temptations that arise contrary to a person’s will — from “the outside”, as it were.  The food enters the body and then leaves it as waste.  “But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him.”  That is, that which originates within a person defiles that person.  Jesus thus shows the full meaning of Proverbs 26, 27: “He who digs a pit shall fall into it.”  The sinner hurts himself more than he hurts another by his sin.  Lustful thoughts, as thoughts, do not harm another person directly.  They do, however, defile the person who consents to them.

This word, translated here as “to defile”, has the sense of “to pollute”, and it can mean “to make ritually impure”.  That is, such a person could not participate in Temple worship and would have to keep apart from others until he had performed the proper washing rituals.  This was a very serious matter for the Jews.  This impurity made a person incapable of the holy.  For us, it is a sign fulfilled when the Lord Jesus was driven outside the camp of his people with their sins upon him (cf. Leviticus 16, 21-22), in fact making him sin (2 Corinthians 5, 21).  The ritual impurity of the Jews is shown to be the sign of the reality of mortal sin.  

The Lord lists these mortal sins: “Evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.”  These corrupt and pollute the person who commits them and the effect does not vanish after the sin has been committed, but remains.  It is necessary to repent of our sins, to hate them, to confess them, and to do what we can to make up for them.  Failure to do so makes us unworthy of the holy — the reception of the Blessed Sacrament, and ultimately the life of heaven.  

Tuesday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 10, 2026

Mark 7, 1-13

When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.) So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?” He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts. You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition! For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and Whoever curses father or mother shall die. Yet you say, ‘If someone says to father or mother, “Any support you might have had from me is qorban”’ (meaning, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.”

In this passage, Jesus does something both bracing and merciful: he exposes a subtle way the human heart can evade God while appearing to serve Him. The Pharisees are not villains in the crude sense. They care deeply about holiness. They have inherited a tradition meant to safeguard reverence, order, and remembrance of God in everyday life. Handwashing, purification, attentiveness to ritual — these began as ways of keeping God close.

But somewhere along the way, the means replaced the end.

Jesus does not criticize their concern for purity; he criticizes the direction of their concern. Isaiah’s words cut straight to the point: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” What has gone wrong is not practice, but priority. Human precepts—originally meant to serve God’s command — have become shields behind which one can hide from the demands of love.

The example Jesus gives is devastating in its simplicity. A person declares his resources qorban, a Hebrew word meaning  “drawing near”. In a religious context this means to draw near to God in order to present him a gift. And in doing this the person is excused from caring for his parents. The act sounds pious. It even sounds sacrificial. But it empties the commandment—Honor your father and your mother — of its living force. God is honored in name, while the neighbor is abandoned in fact.

This is why Jesus calls it hypocrisy — not play-acting, but division. The lips and the heart are no longer aligned. Worship becomes something one performs rather than something one lives.

And here is the uncomfortable truth for us: Jesus is not warning us against tradition as such. He is warning us against using religion to manage God, to keep Him safely at a distance. Traditions become dangerous when they allow us to feel righteous without becoming loving, correct without becoming just, devout without becoming generous.

The question Jesus leaves us with is not, Do you keep the traditions? but rather, Do your practices bring you closer to God’s will — or do they protect you from it? Do they sharpen the demands of love, or soften them?

At its heart, this Gospel is a call to reunite what should never be separated: worship and obedience, reverence and mercy, doctrine and love. God does not ask for cleaner hands at the expense of a hardened heart. He asks for a heart so alive to His command that even the smallest actions—eating, giving, speaking—flow from love.

Jesus does not abolish holiness here. He restores its center. And when holiness is centered again on love of God and love of neighbor, worship ceases to be vain — and becomes true.