TUESDAY OF THE FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME - 2021

DAILY HOLY MASS READING

Bend my heart to your will, O Lord,
and teach me your law. PS118:36,29

GENESIS 1:20-2:4

My Soul's Beloved,

All it took is a Word, God's Eternal Word, and all came to be as God intended. The world and all in it is His design and has His imprint on it and all that He created is good. He Himself said so, and when He created humans, in His image and likeness, and when He looked at all He had created He declared it all to be very good.

We have spoilt what God meant to be very good indeed by our disobedience, selfishness, pride, arrogance, and willfulness. We choose to believe the Father of lies rather than the Father of love and goodness. We were meant to be holy, perfect, created for joy, and to behold You in wonder and awe and delight in Your creation.

God created us male and female - this was the template for all relationships within the human framework - a complementarity working together, the two becoming one and each perfecting the other, glorifying God in their union, collaborating with Him, and sharing His power and creativity in bringing forth new life. 

God created man in the image of himself,

in the image of God he created him,
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. 

What an ugly, sorry mess we have made of our world, and our relationship with God and with each other. How far we have strayed from God's plan for us and for this world that He gave us stewardship of.

The wonder of God's love revealed to us in You assures us that there is hope still. In You, there is always hope. God has not abandoned us and He never will, for Your sake.

All is not lost. The Holy Spirit is at work in us. The power of the Cross is a power that brings healing, restoration, and renewal. The victory is won - may Your faithful remnant never cease to pray and wait in expectant hope for the day of Your triumphant return to welcome us all into Your eternal rest. 

PSALM 8:4-9

My Soul's Beloved,

The choice is ours, we can either look at the heavens or we can stick our faces in the pigpen. We can either soar the horizon on the wings of an eagle and touch the Face of God, or we can wallow in the mire of sin and cover ourselves in its filth and stench. 

You created us to contemplate beauty, truth, goodness. You created us in love for love and to love. You who placed the stars carefully in the sky according to Your will, pattern, and design, stoop lovingly over us, gazing tenderly down on us. You sigh over our stupidity, our willful ignorance of You, and our careful and deliberate attempts to distance ourselves from You believing we know better than You how to live our lives - preferably without You. 

We have only to look at our world to see what a sorry mess we have made and how well we have succeeded in destroying all that was entrusted to our stewardship, yet You have not given up on us.  

What is man that you should be mindful of him,
or the son of man that you should care for him?

God sent You, His well-beloved Son into the world, and for a while, You were made little less than the angels but now You are crowned with glory, honor, and splendor, for You have redeemed us and restored the inheritance God intended us to have. 

Grant O Lord, that in the power of the Spirit that You have so generously given us, we may use this time before Your coming in glory, wisely and profitably. May we make You known and loved so all can have a seat at the heavenly table and feast at the Wedding Banquet of the Lamb and His Bride. 

MARK 7:1-13

My Soul's Beloved,

The clue to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and scribes is the fact that they were accusing some of Your disciples not of breaking the Law but of not following the ritual of the elders. These and many other man-made rituals were imposed on a hapless community. Poor, ordinary, mostly ignorant people who toiled day and night to make an honest living were bullied into following them making their difficult life even more difficult by placing these additional burdens on them.

They had neither the courage, knowledge, or power to go against them but You took them on, You revealed their infamy publicly, and condemned them for using the law for personal gain and not to honor and glorify God. It is no wonder that they hated You with a visceral hatred.

The people who flocked to You recognized You to be a man of God, who possessed the power of God and they took advantage of Your Presence by bringing their sick to be touched and healed by You. But the Pharisees and scribes came with treachery in their hearts.

This passage is a timely reminder to those who use God's Word to make a personal profit from it at the expense of the people of God. 

Many of us are guilty of shirking our responsibilities with false piety. We pretend to make a great show of being busy with God's work, we make a public display of our good deeds in order to receive the adulation and approval of people and to gain influence and power. 

We neglect to give a glass of cold water to the thirsty, a loaf of bread to the hungry, we turn our gaze away from the naked, we scorn and condemn those in prison, and we neglect the needs of the widow and orphan and all the while we make a great pretense of our nonexistent good works. We are so successful at fooling ourselves and those around us that we end up believing we have fooled God as well. 

To us as well You quote the prophet, Isaiah:

This people honors me only with lip-service,
while their hearts are far from me.
The worship they offer me is worthless,
the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.

Using this passage, many of our fellow-Christians accuse and condemn the Church of following man-made traditions. They invariably do so by taking Your words out of context. What the Church guards carefully and hands down from one generation to the next is Apostolic Tradition. The fullness of the Word and the fullness of the Work of Incarnation, written and unwritten, together make up the fullness of Truth that makes its home in this Church You founded with Peter as its Rock and You as its Cornerstone.