My dear parishioners and visitors:
“…. some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands,…” (Mk. 7: 2)
Today people everywhere want and need clean water, clean air, clean food and a good environment to live in. We also are often preoccupied with physical cleanliness and so conscientious about pollution. It is rightly so.
However Jesus, in today’s gospel reading, Mk. 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-230, teaches and invites us to reflect upon the purity of heart and mind. We know so well that a polluted heart and mind, being flooded with sinful thoughts and bad desires, is the worse source of evil and a good heart and clean mind, being purified from dangerous pollutants such as pride, anger, hate, lust, greed, envy…, is the well spring and source of good. Then He urges us to strive for the cleanness of heart and mind.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt. 5:8).
Have a blessed week. Fr. Peter Hoan Nguyen.