Daily Gospel Reflection
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February 11, 2020
When the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.)
So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
Then he said to them, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Any support you might have had from me is qorban’ (that is, an offering to God)—then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”
Jesus has just about had it with the Pharisees, those holier-than-thou busybodies who whine at every turn about the unorthodox ways in which he is breaking open the kingdom. “Sure, go ahead and save us from our sins, but you’d better get those hands washed correctly first,” they seem to say. “Sure, heal and relieve the great sufferings of many in our community, but it had better not be on the Sabbath.”
One thing, in particular, has really been bugging Jesus, and he takes this opportunity to point it out to his accusers. Apparently, vowing money to the Temple had become a convenient loophole to avoid providing support for one’s parents in their old age. The Pharisees were providing a way for people to get off the hook from their responsibility to honor their parents by making a great show of offering that money to God (as “qorban”) and receiving the perk of being known as a generous contributor.
Like the Pharisees, we all want to be right and get our way at the same time. These desires create contradictions that we are often all too willing to overlook. We feel good about avoiding shows with bad language on TV, but don’t consider the violence in our favorite program. We tell ourselves we would never commit adultery, but we let our eyes wander, or relish the time we spend with an attractive co-worker. We claim healthy boundaries to avoid being around needy people but depend on others in the parish to take care of them.
Jesus wants to cure the Pharisees, and us too, from hiding behind comfortable certitudes that keep us greedy and self-serving.
He’s got my number. How about you?
Prayer
God, bring our hearts close to you. There is much in this world that makes us feel steady and in control, but we know that ultimately our strength will fail and our grasp on the things in our lives will not stand the test of time. Only you, Lord, are unmoving, solid and sure.
And yet, you give us an example that is flexible and open, a witness that loves through thick and thin and will not become calcified or rigid. Soften our hearts to love in that way and bring our hearts close to you. Amen.
Saint of the Day
On February 11, 1858, a poor 14-year-old shepherd girl named Bernadette Soubirous was collecting firewood near Lourdes, France. She saw a bright light, and Mary appeared before her in a natural hollow of rock in a cave on the shore of a river.
Mary appeared with a youthful face, and she wore a white garment with a blue belt and carried a rosary. Over the course of 18 appearances, she identified herself as the Immaculate Conception. Mary told Bernadette to drink from a spring within the cave and to tell Church authorities to build a shrine on the site. Since those appearances, more than 200 million pilgrims have visited Lourdes, many reporting cures from the miraculous spring.
Father Sorin visited Lourdes, France, on one of his many trips back to France in the late 1800s to confer with the Holy Cross community. He was moved by the display of faith he saw there and began conversations at Notre Dame to construct a replica shrine on campus.
Notre Dame’s Grotto was constructed in 1896 (after Sorin’s death) and replicates the shrine at Lourdes on a one-seventh scale. A stone from Lourdes is implanted in the Grotto wall. The other boulders were unearthed from nearby farm fields, some weighing two or three tons. Workers, in digging the foundation, opened a spring of water in the same relative position as the miraculous spring that emerged at Lourdes—that spring now flows through the fountain on the left side of the Grotto.
In addition to the Grotto, Our Lady of Lourdes is depicted in a large mural in the Basilica, shown in today's featured image.
Our Lady of Lourdes, who brings healing and hope to your children in France and throughout the world—pray for us!