Commentary on the Gospel of
Commentary to the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
"Nothing that enters from outside can render a man impure".
The first reading, and the Gospel, value the Lord's commandments as an absolute norm against any human tradition: "You set aside the commandment of God to give more importance to the tradition of men" (Mark 7,8).
Jesus speaks clearly to them: "Isaiah prophesied well of you. This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me" (Mark 7,8). Jesus speaks about the pure and the impure, not in a ritual sense, but in a moral and personal sense, i.e. in relation to the conscience of man before God. And he says to them: "Listen and understand, all of you, that nothing that comes in from outside can make a man impure, but only what comes out from inside", because they were very concerned about the so-called "legal purity", literally fulfilling the law and forgetting "the attitude of the heart", from which free and responsible decisions are born.
Today we are also not exempted from putting the emphasis on the external. Because our human customs or traditions supplant God's basic commandment "to love Him above all things and our neighbour as ourselves". Perhaps we should ask ourselves about our behaviour towards the people we meet on the road of life: What am I doing for others? What importance do I attach to love and serve others? What am I doing positively to build a more just, better and more humane society?
Let us not forget that Jesus' main commandment is this: "That you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12), that our actions are worth as much as the love we put into them.
Lord, may no law be able to justify that we deviate from what is right. Help us to seek what is important and disregard what is unnecessary.
(Psalm 14) Lord, who can stay in your tent?
BLESSED SUNDAY TO ALL!
