Daily Gospel Reflection
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February 13, 2019
Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them,
“Hear me, all of you, and understand.
Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person;
but the things that come out from within are what defile.”
When he got home away from the crowd
his disciples questioned him about the parable.
He said to them,
“Are even you likewise without understanding?
Do you not realize that everything
that goes into a person from outside cannot defile,
since it enters not the heart but the stomach
and passes out into the latrine?”
(Thus he declared all foods clean.)
“But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him.
From within the man, from his heart,
come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within and they defile.”
When I eat junk, it shows. Sugar and grease demonstrate their presence in my body through thinning hair, tired eyes, and acne, a strange collusion of age and adolescence that belies metabolic misery and, in a roundabout way, my inevitable death. Sounds dramatic, I know, but it’s true. When Jesus, in today’s Gospel reading, says that there is “nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him,” it doesn’t sound like he’s seen me eat an entire bag of powdered donuts. What’s more, he seems like a poor fit for our health-obsessed, food-fixated, juice-cleansing culture. In actuality, Jesus is bypassing the apparent effects and striking straight at the cause, the existential root of our death: our sinful hearts.
In Jesus’ Jewish society, the created world reflected humanity’s relationship with their Creator. Religious authorities kept careful tabs on what fellow Jews ate, drank, wore, and touched, for things that reflected death, decay, and sin could make one unclean before God. Jesus knew, however, that no matter how intense the abstinence from things deemed “unclean,” a woman or man could not change the state of their sinful heart. We need, above all else, a new heart.
Through his passion, death, and rising again, Jesus accomplished what we could not so that our hearts might be freed of this curse. He fulfills the prophetic words of Ezekiel, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.” Even now, through his Word and his Sacraments, he gives us his Sacred Heart so that we might be made whole and holy. It is here that we understand the true purpose of abstaining from those substances and practices that are deemed sinful, or, at best, unhelpful: rejecting these things opens our hearts to receive Jesus. He is our true food.
Taste him and see.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, you teach us the way of the pure of heart, that we might see God more clearly, and so love God more fully. Help us to overcome the weakness and sin in our lives that prevent us from loving you and others with all our heart. Give us patience, perseverance, and confidence in your loving mercy for those sinful habits and behaviors that we find particularly difficult to overcome. Help us to know that your love for us is greater than our capacity to sin. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Blessed Eustochium is a somewhat tragic figure, whose life was marked with suffering, but who seems to have borne all of her mental and physical distress with great love for Christ.
Eustochium was born in the year 1433 in Padua, Italy. She was the illegitimate daughter of a nun who had broken her vows. The sister bore Eustochium in her convent, where Eustochium could have lived her days in peace in a supportive environment.
The bishop, however, caught wind of the scandal, and reorganized the convent, presumably separating Eustochium's mother from her. Eustochium, whose baptismal name was Lucrezia, remained at the convent and attended the school for girls there.
Eventually, Lucrezia desired to enter the convent and join the order of sisters. Many of the sisters objected, out of distaste for her origins, but the bishop was on Lucrezia's side and she entered the convent a few years after her twentieth birthday. She took the name Eustochium, which was the name of an early Church Father, one of the disciples of St. Jerome.
During her short time as a sister, Eustochium experienced grave mental distress and the sisters were afraid of her wild outbursts of temper, mixed with her periods of melancholy. Eustochium cut herself with knives, which frightened the sisters, and they believed that she was possessed by a demon. They punished her in a manner which only hurt her more, and the bishop imprisoned her in a dungeon for three months. The townspeople wanted to burn her as a witch. Eustochium, however, clung to her desire to be a sister. She did not abandon her vocation. After four grueling years, she received her final vows. But the intense mental and physical distress weakened her health a great deal and she died on February 13, 1459.
Three years after her burial, her body was discovered to be incorrupt, and the bishop of Padua ordered a biography written and her body moved to a place of greater honor. Blessed Eustochium has been honored in Padua ever since. Let us pray to her to intercede particularly for those who are unwanted and for those who feel the afflictions of mental illness, depression, and loneliness.
Blessed Eustochium of Padua, young nun who bore terrible mental illness—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Eustochium is in the public domain. Last accessed December 5, 2024 on Wikimedia Commons.
