Your word is truth, O Lord:
consecrate us in the truth. JN 17:17
GENESIS 2:4-9,15-17
My Soul's Beloved,
We often forget that we are created from dust and we will return to dust except for our soul which is God-breathed and is eternal. You love us, Lord, we have only to look at a crucifix to know how infinitely and totally we are loved by God. We are called to offer God a reciprocal love, a love given to God by an act of will which is Your gift to us. We have the power to choose whether or not to love God and always choose what is right, fitting, and good, or to give in to concupiscence which is always at war in us to gain precedence over what we know full well we ought to choose.
We were created for happiness, for life in its fullness, for meaning, and purpose by discerning Your will for our lives and doing it. Sadly, because we prefer to seek joy in all the wrong places we find ourselves sick, sad, miserably, anxious, depressed, empty, and alone. The more we try to fill the whole in our soul with things other than You, Lord, we condemn ourselves to misery, fear, and sorrow.
We have a choice daily either to enjoy the riches of Your bountiful love and all the graces that come with it or seek fulfillment in places where we are clearly warned will bring eternal separation from You if we die in our sins.
The Lord God planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. The Lord God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden. The Lord God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it. 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 103(104):1-2,27-30
Bless the Lord, my soul!
Bless the Lord, my soul!
Lord God, how great you are,
clothed in majesty and glory,
wrapped in light as in a robe!
When he (Jesus) 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.’
The Lord God planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. The Lord God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden. The Lord God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it. 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 103(104):1-2,27-30
Bless the Lord, my soul!
Bless the Lord, my soul!
Lord God, how great you are,
clothed in majesty and glory,
wrapped in light as in a robe!
All of these look to you
to give them their food in due season.
You give it, they gather it up:
you open your hand, they have their fill.
to give them their food in due season.
You give it, they gather it up:
you open your hand, they have their fill.
You take back your spirit, they die,
returning to the dust from which they came.
You send forth your spirit, they are created;
and you renew the face of the earth.
You send forth your spirit, they are created;
and you renew the face of the earth.
Bless the Lord, my soul!
MARK 7:14-23
My Soul's Beloved,
My Soul's Beloved,
Wisdom and Life come from listening to Your Word and obeying it. The chaos and confusion in the world come from people choosing to listen to voices other than the voice of God which is Truth. In many places, people with power and authority use the choice of food as a weapon. They exercise this power cruelly and their bigotry over those who desire to choose whatever food they like to such a great degree that they are prepared to imprison, punish, and even kill those who exercise that God-given right and freedom.
These most vile, vindictive, and cruel enforcers of these man-made restrictions are the ones whose hearts are filled with the stench of decay and death. These narrow-minded bigots bear down so heavily on the minority they crush them for daring to exercise their rights. It is what is born in our minds and finds a home in our hearts that determines whether we are clean or unclean not our food and drink.
When he (Jesus) 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.’
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