Today’s second reading suggests that discrimination between rich and poor people had even infiltrated the early Church. St. James invokes the Old Testament belief that God’s special care is given to poor people, choosing them to be “rich in faith” and “heirs to the kingdom which he promised to those who love him.” Jesus chose the life of a poor man; he had “nowhere to lay his head” and, in St. Paul’s words, “he became poor for your sake, to make you rich out of his poverty.” In His public ministry Jesus’ love embraced everyone, and He bridged the great divide between rich and poor people, not in a material way but through increasing their love and faith. The miracle in today’s Gospel, in which Jesus cures a man who is deaf and speaks with difficulty, can be seen not only as physical healing but also as a spiritual gift that brings the man to a deeper faith. St. Mark gives the incident a symbolic meaning: the man is taken apart from the crowd and receives the ability to hear and to speak of what he has heard and understood, whereas the disciples, though they were privileged to be constantly in the presence of Jesus, so often failed to understand what they had heard.

St. Francis was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant but as a young man, after returning from war, he made a pilgrimage to Rome. There his heart was moved by the sight of the beggars. He exchanged clothes with one of their number and, discovering for himself the reality of poverty, he resolved to commit his life to prayer and to serve all who were poor. St. Francis was known as “Il Poverello”, the poor man. He embraced poverty in imitation of Christ and by his way of life increased love and faith, healing, the gap between rich and poor. It is by imitating Christ, as Francis did, that we too can bridge whatever divides us from each other.

Customs, traditional ways of doing things, are part and parcel of every society, including every religious community. They can be extremely useful, but over time can become pointless. In today’s first reading Moses commands the people to follow their God-given “laws and customs.” And in the Gospel the Pharisees and scribes complain to Jesus that His disciples are eating with unwashed hands, and so are not complying with the Law. They mean that the disciples are ignoring some of the prescriptions that the scribes and Pharisees had added to the Law over the centuries. These regulations were not concerned with health and safety but with ritual purity. Jesus is not suggesting that matters of ritual purity are of no value, but He does insist that there are other things of greater importance. With a quotation from the Prophet Isaiah, He claims that the Pharisees are hypocrites: they are actors, showmen, who offer lip service to the Lord while in fact their hearts are far from Him; their service is worthless. He explains that they should look, not to what goes into the stomach, but what emerges from the heart. It is the human heart that is the source of of uncleanness, of “evil intentions.”

Today’s readings prompt us to examine our attitude towards our own religious customs and practices. We too can become rigid and narrow; we can behave like the Pharisees of old. We can loath to accept any changes in what we’ve been used; even changes that have been approved by the Church, changes made because circumstances have changed or because former practices have been replaced by more helpful ones. Jesus ends the controversy in today’s Gospel by insisting that the heart is the source of “evil things;” but, by implication, it is also the source of good things. Jesus wants a heart that is humble, a heart that knows its own limitations, a heart that is ready to accept change when change is called for, a heart that is in fact like unto His own; He calls to be like Him, “gentle and humble in heart.”

Daily decisions are a part of life: how to dress, what to eat, when to go to bed. In these matters our decisions are constantly changing, but there are some decisions which by their nature should be permanent. An excellent example of which is the decision to marry. Marriage is a covenant, a permanent, loving relationship of fidelity in which a man and woman become one.

God invited His people of the Old Testament to become His partner in a covenant which was a spiritual form of marriage. Joshua had made his decision.

Centuries later Jesus confronted those who had heard Him preach. He challenged them to make a decision about Himself. But that they take it seriously is exactly what Jesus demanded. When His objectors turned their backs on Him to walk away, He let them go. It was the day of decision. Peter, in a protestation of loyalty which has been repeated down through the ages by men and women of faith, declared, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe; we are convinced that You are God’s holy one.” He had made a decision to bind himself so closely to Christ that, despite his late momentary lapse, he would be of one mind in faith with Christ. In effect he said that he wanted to enter into a permanent, loving relationship of fidelity with Christ.

We have the same grace which means we have the same challenge, the same decisions to make. Christ made faith in the Eucharist the ultimate test of faith in Himself. To embrace the Eucharist and to make the celebration of this sacrament the center and heart of our lives is to live out the permanent, loving relationship which makes Christ and ourselves two in one flesh.

Jesus was also a human being of His time and place. This means He inherited all the traditions, scriptures and religious practice of His people. That is a part of the reality of incarnation. In today’s Gospel He draws on the Wisdom tradition of Israel, the Exodus story and, we can say, the tradition of the Temple liturgy. One of the aspects of bread is that is nourishes us. Jesus is pointing to himself as the ultimate nourishment for humanity. He also gives himself to us in the Eucharist. He is the fulfillment of all sacred bread and sacred meals of the Old Testament, as well as all the sacrifices.

The most obvious way that we can apply Jesus’ teaching to our lives is by believing in Him, putting Him at the center of our lives and worshiping Him in the Eucharist. There are several ways in which we can do these things, primarily by participating worthily in the sacraments and especially the Mass. As St. Francis de Sales said, “Prayer is the means by which we ascend to God; the sacraments are the channels by which God descends to us.” He also recommends that we go to Mass every week and receive Holy Communion, that we should be free from mortal sin. We can visit the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle and spend time in prayer and adoration. As well as living a sacramental life in the Church, we can try to do the works of love. The love of God, poured into our hearts by the Eucharist, can overflow into the lives of our family and neighbors, and the great family of humanity. Any good work that we do for the love of God and neighbor is a spreading of the goodness that radiates the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.