20180207 CHRIST AS THE WISDOM OF GOD ENLIGHTENS US IN OUR FOLLY
07 FEBRUARY, 2018, Wednesday, 5th Week, Ordinary Time
Readings
at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Green.
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First reading
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1 Kings 10:1-10 ©
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Solomon prays to the Lord in the Temple
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The fame of Solomon having reached the queen of Sheba... she came
to test him with difficult questions. She brought immense riches to Jerusalem
with her, camels laden with spices, great quantities of gold, and precious
stones. On coming to Solomon, she opened her mind freely to him; and Solomon
had an answer for all her questions, not one of them was too obscure for the
king to expound. When the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon, the
palace he had built, the food at his table, the accommodation for his
officials, the organisation of his staff and the way they were dressed, his
cup-bearers, and the holocausts he offered in the Temple of the Lord, it left
her breathless, and she said to the king, ‘What I heard in my own country about
you and your wisdom was true, then! Until I came and saw it with my own eyes I
could not believe what they told me, but clearly they told me less than half:
for wisdom and prosperity you surpass the report I heard. How happy your wives
are! How happy are these servants of yours who wait on you always and hear your
wisdom! Blessed be the Lord your God who has granted you his favour, setting
you on the throne of Israel! Because of the Lord’s everlasting love for Israel,
he has made you king to deal out law and justice.’ And she presented the king
with a hundred and twenty talents of gold and great quantities of spices and
precious stones; no such wealth of spices ever came again as those given to
King Solomon by the queen of Sheba.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 36(37):5-6,30-31,39-40 ©
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The just man’s mouth utters wisdom.
Commit your life to the Lord,
trust in him and he will act,
so that your justice breaks forth like the light,
your cause like the noon-day sun.
The just man’s mouth utters wisdom.
The just man’s mouth utters wisdom
and his lips speak what is right;
the law of his God is in his heart,
his steps shall be saved from stumbling.
The just man’s mouth utters wisdom.
The salvation of the just comes from the Lord,
their stronghold in time of distress.
The Lord helps them and delivers them
and saves them: for their refuge is in him.
The just man’s mouth utters wisdom.
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Gospel Acclamation
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cf.2Tim1:10
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Our Saviour Jesus Christ abolished death
and he has proclaimed life through the Good News.
Alleluia!
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Or
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Jn17:17
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Your word is truth, O Lord:
consecrate us in the truth.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Mark 7:14-23 ©
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It is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean
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Jesus called the people to him and said, ‘Listen to me, all of
you, and understand. Nothing that goes into a man from outside can make him
unclean; it is the things that come out of a man that make him unclean. If
anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to this.’
When he had
gone back into the house, away from the crowd, his disciples questioned him
about the parable. He said to them, ‘Do you not understand either? Can you not
see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot make him unclean, because
it does not go into his heart but through his stomach and passes out into the
sewer?’ (Thus he pronounced all foods clean.) And he went on, ‘It is what comes
out of a man that makes him unclean. For it is from within, from men’s hearts,
that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice,
malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things
come from within and make a man unclean.’
CHRIST AS THE WISDOM OF GOD ENLIGHTENS US IN OUR FOLLY
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ 1 KGS 10:1-10; MK 7:14-23 ]
What is the
cause of our misery and unhappiness in life? Quite often, we
think the problem lies outside of us. We blame our unhappiness on people
around us who make our life difficult or on the situation. They are our
scapegoats for those times when we got angry or unhappy. This is
precisely what the Pharisees and Scribes thought. They thought that salvation
has to do with external ritual purification. But in the gospel Jesus made
it clear. He said, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand. Nothing
that goes into a man from outside can make him unclean; it is the things that
come out of a man that make him unclean.”
These words of
Jesus were certainly a shock and scandal to the Jews, considering
that King Antiochus IV, during the time of his reign, persecuted the Jews by
seeking to eliminate the Jewish religion. He caused them to violate their
religious laws by forcing them to consume unclean food, as in the case of the
seven brothers who were put to death before the eyes of their mother in the
Second Book of Maccabees because they refused to eat unclean food as commanded
by the King. (Confer 2 Mac 7)
So when Jesus made light of their dietary Laws by permitting the consumption of
unclean food, it surely would have evoked much emotional despair that their
ancestors died for nothing!
Yet, Jesus was
simply enlightening them on the real cause of their unhappiness in life. Holiness
is not an external performance but an interior conversion of the heart.
Certainly, outward rituals and displays of religiosity are important insofar as
it helps and promotes devotion to God and a reminder of our love for Him, but
it cannot replace the interior devotion of the heart.
Real
transformation must begin from within, since the root of the problem lies
within the hearts of men;not with the external environment. Indeed, as Jesus told His
disciples, “It is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. For it
is from within, from men’s hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication,
theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander,
pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man
unclean.”
So the heart
is the real source of our defilement, the evil desires that come from the
innermost being of the person. Sin is not from external forces. Such secret desires
and intentions are conceived first in the mind and heart of the individual.
Action follows from thoughts. So it is because the mind is evil and the
heart has evil desires that a person performs sinful actions.
For this reason, Jesus
comes to enlighten us so that He can free us from the web of sin. He
is truly the Wisdom of God in person. Knowing where the cause of our
misery lies is the beginning of true freedom. The book of Proverbs says,
“Happy the man who discovers wisdom, the man who gains discernment; gaining her
is more rewarding than silver, more profitable than gold. She is beyond
the price of pearls; nothing you could covet is her equal.” (Prov 3:13-15)
So if we want to be liberated from our bondage to sin, we must look into the
depths of our heart. Jesus, as our teacher of wisdom, will lead us to
enter into the depth of our souls.
What, then,
is the cause for such a heart, since evil comes from within us? In Christian
understanding, the cause of our brokenness comes from a wounded nature, which
the Church speaks of as Original Sin. As a result, we have
lost the grace of God to battle against the enemies of the Kingdom of
God. As the Church tells us, original sin is a deprivation of original
holiness and justice. The consequence of original sin is that our human
nature has been “wounded in the natural powers proper to it,” and that it is
subject to “ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death; and inclined to sin
– an inclination to evil that is called ‘concupiscence.’”
This concupiscence,
which is now part of our human nature, causes the disordered tendencies, be it
inordinate lust, greed or any form of craving in our lives. When we give
in to these excessive cravings, we defile ourselves. Hence, holiness and
purification must begin from within. We must heal our hearts and minds so
that we can overcome our disorientation and lack of self-control.
Nevertheless, the Church, whilst affirming that our nature is fallen and
weakened, assures us that we have not lost our freedom to choose. We are
still responsible for our choices and thus cannot exonerate ourselves from all
blame to original sin. Yet it is true that the power to exercise that
freedom of choice is weakened.
In the light of
this dilemma, St Paul says, “if death came to reign through that one man, how
much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of
justification come to reign in life through the one person Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:15).
Indeed, it is true that sin continues to reign in us but it is equally true
that we have been given the grace to overcome the temptations and roots of
sin. What is needed is that we must turn to Christ who can heal
us of our brokenness by assuring us that we are loved unconditionally
by His Father and have been forgiven of our sins. His death on the cross
and His resurrection are the surety for us that sin and death have been
overcome and what reigns is love and life.
Most of all, He
gives us His Spirit at the resurrection to help us struggle with our hurtful
desires and sinful tendencies. We are given the necessary grace and
strength to resist and overcome sin. Through the Holy Spirit too, we are freed
from our guilt and the destructive forces of sin in our personal
lives. The Holy Spirit comes to empower us and enlighten us in
Christ so that we can walk the way of wisdom.
Accordingly, we
must turn to Christ who can heal us by first enlightening us of our follies in
life. The book of Hebrews asks us to turn to Christ to purify our
hearts. Jesus who is “the Word of God is living and active, sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and
marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And
before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of
him with whom we have to do.” (Heb 4:12f)
Recourse to the Word of God is the only way to gain wisdom of heart.
We must learn
from the Queen of Sheba. When she heard of the wisdom of King Solomon, she came to
discover for herself instead of simply being contented with the reports about
him. She said, “What I heard in my own country about you and your wisdom
was true, then! Until I came and saw it with my own eyes I could not
believe what they told me, but clearly they told me less than half: for wisdom
and prosperity you surpass the report I heard.” Indeed, the Queen tested
Solomon with many difficult questions and “Solomon had an answer for all her
questions, not one of them was too obscure for the king to expound.” We
must therefore no longer delay in coming to Christ our Wisdom teacher to help
us under the truth about ourselves and what it takes to free us from our
sins. To know true wisdom, we need the Holy Spirit who gives us the
Wisdom of Christ our Lord by enabling us to understand the Word of God that
Christ has left to His Church.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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