\u00c2\u00a0 August 30, 2009<\/p>\n
Have you looked inside your heart recently?\u00c2\u00a0 What do you see there?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0These qualities are the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit.\u00c2\u00a0 They are the virtues that all of us need \u00c2\u00a0to live life as Jesus intended for us to live it.\u00c2\u00a0 They are the virtues that we should see in the people that we look up to. \u00c2\u00a0People who live their lives with these virtues should be our role models.\u00c2\u00a0 They are the people, as St. James put it, who are “doers of the word not just hearers of it”.<\/p>\n
Now in the Gospel, Jesus confronts the Pharisees with some pretty harsh language.\u00c2\u00a0 And yet, the Pharisees were considered the cream of the crop at that time.\u00c2\u00a0 They knew God’s law better than anyone else.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why they were called Pharisees, because they studied the scriptures and knew “by heart” the wonderful and just set of laws that Moses speaks of in the first reading.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only that, they were renowned for keeping those laws.\u00c2\u00a0 And indeed, these Pharisees did as they preached for the most part.\u00c2\u00a0 Otherwise they would have had no following.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, they observed the laws of cleanliness mentioned in the Gospel\u00c2\u00a0 down to the last dot on the “i” and cross on the “t”.\u00c2\u00a0 So, why chastise them so soundly.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
I think it is for two reasons:\u00c2\u00a0 First, because you cannot depend on external appearances to tell what is really going on in someone’s heart.\u00c2\u00a0 And so, for that matter, others cannot really tell by your external appearance, what is going on in your heart.\u00c2\u00a0 We hear news stories frequently that demonstrate this.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone is caught for a terrible crime, like the Kansas serial killer, who appeared to be a pillar of the community and his church; but that is clearly not what was in his heart.\u00c2\u00a0 So, judging others by appearances can be deceptive.\u00c2\u00a0 And what is so wrong about this judging of others is that it is a means of deflecting attention from the responsibility we have for ourselves.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s where our attention ought to be.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Second, he chastised the Pharisees because God’s law had become too literal, too rigid,\u00c2\u00a0 too much a matter of meeting the letter of the requirement and not the spirit of it.\u00c2\u00a0 Following the law became a matter of black and white rather than a motivation in the heart to be a doer of the word.\u00c2\u00a0 And so, they had lost sight of what it is to live in the spirit of the God who they worshiped.\u00c2\u00a0 Going through the motions was more important than the God.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Indeed, the Gospel tells how the Pharisees did something that shows both of these flaws.\u00c2\u00a0 First, they judged the Apostles on the basis of external appearances; violations of details of the dietary laws that they, the Pharisees, appeared to follow carefully.\u00c2\u00a0 In this way, the Pharisees deflected attention from the responsibility they had for their sins by focusing attention on the sins of someone else.\u00c2\u00a0 Second, the Pharisees had made these dietary laws the issue, not the intent of the dietary laws.\u00c2\u00a0 And so, Jesus reacted in anger at their hypocrisy.\u00c2\u00a0 Jesus could see inside of these people and, though they appeared to be pious, \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0he tells them they were paying lip service to the law because they were not motivated from within.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now the things that Jesus says produce evil from within are:\u00c2\u00a0 Evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, blasphemy, envy, arrogance, and folly.\u00c2\u00a0 These are just the opposite of the fruits of the spirit.\u00c2\u00a0 For, whereas the fruits lead us to denial of self out of love, the bad qualities that Jesus mentions motivate based on love of self.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
This message is not limited to the Pharisees.\u00c2\u00a0 It applies just as well to us here today.\u00c2\u00a0 People go faithfully to Church and these kinds of services; they take Communion each time; they put their children into religious education, and they participate in some Parish Groups.\u00c2\u00a0 They appear to be Catholics in good standing.\u00c2\u00a0 And all of that is good, in the same sense that the Pharisees were good and most of the Pharisees were good.\u00c2\u00a0 But, has your devotion to your faith become something you do out of habit, so that obeying the rules is what it is about instead living the intent of the rules?\u00c2\u00a0 Are you looking over your shoulders at your neighbors who don’t do all these things you do and justifying your piety on the basis of the lack of observed piety of your neighbor just like the Pharisees did?\u00c2\u00a0 You see, that deflects your attention from what is really important for you.\u00c2\u00a0 And what is it that is really important for you?\u00c2\u00a0 First, that the motivation from within your heart is based on the fruits of the Holy Spirit; that you take on the loving spirit of God, as much as you can, and practice virtues like peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in your relations with others; second, that you participate in the Church and in services because it is a way to nurture and grow in your Faith.\u00c2\u00a0 It is a way for you to grow into the Kingdom of God.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Look into your heart today.\u00c2\u00a0 Purge yourselves of any of those evil inclinations and awaken the fruits of the Spirit.\u00c2\u00a0 Be a doer, and not just a hearer of the Word!\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0 August 30, 2009 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Dt 4: 1-2, 6-8; James 1: 17-18, 21b-22, 27; Mk 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Dc. Larry Brockman Have you looked inside your heart recently?\u00c2\u00a0 What do you see there?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0These qualities are the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}