Wednesday, February 8, 2023

 Wednesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 2:4b-9.15-17; Mark 7:14-23)

The two readings today have the morality of eating in common.  In the first, God prohibits Adam from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  In the gospel Jesus calls all food clean.  He explains that evil is produced from the heart and not in the stomach.

Adam’s partner and then Adam himself will eat the forbidden fruit.  Their action will attempt to gain for themselves the authority to determine what is good and bad.  In this way they will be trying to overthrow God’s authority.  Their act, stemming from the heart’s desire for autonomy, can be judged evil.  Allowing God to be God is the fundamental moral lesson of the Bible.  Yet it has continually been violated, perhaps more than ever in today’s world.

Humans try to shake themselves from divine prohibitions in many areas.  Especially prominent (and tragic) are the permissions to have sex outside marriage and to take both nascent and waning human life.  Adam and Eve will see the integrity of their life come apart after their sin.  They will show contempt for one another and their bodies will wither and die.  Similarly, today we see, in many places, the breakdown of the family with the consequent desolation of its members_. Somehow, we must relearn that God’s authority is not only supreme but also just.

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

 

Memorial of Saint Scholastica, virgin

 (Genesis 2:4b-9.15-17; Mark 7:14-23)

Today’s first reading is taken from the so-called second account of creation.  Genesis has already given an ordered account of how the universe and everything in it came to be.  Now it provides a personal story to assist humans in knowing the glories and pitfalls of life.

The gospel today seemingly moves in a direction opposite to that of the first reading.  Where it relays how Jesus “declared all things clean,” the first reading shows God prohibiting a specific food.  The human is not to eat of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil.”  People have speculated on what kind of food the tree bears for millennia. 

 o the best of our understanding, the forbidden fruit does not provide true knowledge of good and evil.  Rather it gives us only a semblance of it.  True knowledge of good and evil – what we know as wisdom -- comes mostly from listening to what God tells us.  By contrast, eating of the tree of knowledge is to think of oneself as wise without God.  It is to say, “I don’t need God to know what is good for me and what is bad for me; I can determine that for myself.”  This, of course, is the essence of pride.  In the gospel Jesus tells his disciples what is truly good and bad.  Eating any of the food that God provides – prudently, for sure – is good.  Evil comes from a heart set on self-satisfaction.

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Wednesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 2:4b-9.15-17; Mark 7:14-23)

Today’s first reading is taken from the so-called second account of creation.  Genesis has already given an ordered account of how the universe and everything in it came to be.  Now it provides a personal story to assist humans in knowing the glories and pitfalls of life.

The gospel today seemingly moves in a direction opposite to that of the first reading.  Where it relays how Jesus “declared all things clean,” the first reading shows the Lord God prohibiting a specific food.  The human is not to eat of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil.”  People have speculated on what kind of food the tree bears for millennia. 

To the best of our understanding the food of the forbidden tree does not provide true knowledge of good and evil.  Rather it gives us only a semblance of it.  True knowledge of good and evil – what we know as wisdom -- comes mostly from listening to what God tells us.  By contrast, eating of the tree of knowledge is to think of oneself as wise without God.  It is to say, “I don’t need God to know what is good for me and what is bad for me; I can determine that for myself.”  This, of course, is the essence of pride.  In the gospel Jesus tells his disciples what is truly good and bad.  Eating any of the food that God provides – prudently, for sure – is good.  Evil comes from a heart set on self-satisfaction.