MEMORIAL OF ST. SCHOLASTICA, VIRGIN - 2021

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Your word is truth, O Lord:
consecrate us in the truth. JN17:17

GENESIS 2:4-9,15-17

My Soul's Beloved,

You created all things all things in readiness before You created the crown of Your creation - man and woman. Fashioning man from the dust of the soil You breathed Your breath of life into him and he lived. You placed him in the garden in Eden teeming with life and beauty and You gave him stewardship of it. He was to work in it, care for it, nurture it, and enjoy the fruit of his labor.

All our work must glorify You only then is it fruitful. All our work when done for Your glory is pleasing to You no matter how humble the task may be. When we offer all our labor to You, You sanctify it and make it an acceptable offering to You. 

While all of life's legitimate pleasures are ours to enjoy God has set limits to our freedom of choice. There are some things that God forbids and while we can disobey You, we do so at our peril as Adam and Eve found out. We still pay the price for their sin even though the waters of Baptism has cleansed us. The knowledge of some things tempts us to eat forbidden fruit to our eternal damnation. 

Then the Lord God gave the man this admonition, ‘You may eat indeed of all the trees in the garden. Nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die.’

PSALM 104:1-2,27-30

My Soul's Beloved,

Life and death are placed before us when we choose life, we are blessed far beyond all our dreams, hopes, and expectations.

The psalmist has found the secret to inner joy - 'Bless the Lord, my soul!' When our focus is on You not on the things around us, the things that plague our peace, the storm, the wind, and the waves, and keep our focus on Your goodness, Your glory, Your majesty, everything that disturbs us will vanish. When all we see is You our fears are calmed, our soul fills with Your light and Your peace, Your grace, and Your Presence floods us and we find our rest in You. 

All that lives was created by You, in You, and for You and depends on You for life and sustenance and You do not disappoint. You open Your hands and fill us with all that is good and needful for our journey from this life to the next.

You are yoked to us, You walk with us, You accompany us through all the circumstances of our lives. Whether we are aware of Your Presence in us, beside us, above and below us, is of no consequence - You remain faithfully with us for You are Emmanuel, God with us. When the course of our life runs out our spirit returns to You while our bodies return to the dust from which they were made until You return to renew the face of the earth.

MARK 7:14-23

My Soul's Beloved,

Immediately after exposing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and scribes, You address the people and teach them the true meaning of the Law of God, not the man-made fabrications of the law taught by the elders. The Law was meant to teach and guide the people not to weigh their spirits down with needless rules and regulations. 

You taught the people then and You teach us now that nothing exterior can harm us or bring death to our soul; rather it is from the seat of the soul, from within the heart springs forth what is good or foul. 

Those who make a fetish of what they eat and drink and impose their preferences on others who do not think like them or believe as they do, cause division and strife. '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.’

The disciples did not fully grasp what You meant and when they questioned You, You explained, that foods have no power to render a person clean or unclean for God created all things and declared them good. He has given to humans as food - all that is grown and cultivated from the soil as well as fowl, fish, and animals. ‘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.) 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.’

We too are such hypocrites - we are so careful of the food we eat, and what we drink, we obsess about the way it is prepared, how it is grown, who has handled it, but we accept much of what is evil and disgusting in the world without batting an eyelid. We make excuses for it, patting ourselves on the back and flattering ourselves because we are so accepting of each other, so broad-minded, so careful not to bruise the feelings of fragile egocentrics who cannot distinguish their right from their left. But You do not mince words when You name our sins - for they are sins no matter how we dress them up with fancy, beguiling words to condone them in ourselves and in others.

As we approach the season of Lent, Beloved, grant us this grace, to examine our lives with greater sincerity and conform our will to Yours in all things. Amen.