What’s in Your Heart? (6th Sunday Ordinary A)

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” St. Teresa of Calcutta, in saying this, was giving us the key to the potential greatness of our human endeavor whatever that is.  The key lies in the interior disposition of the heart. When the heart is totally involved in what you do, no matter what it is, how important or insignificant it is, it naturally acquires meaning.  One of the saddest human predicaments is when one finds his life given to things without one’s heart in them. It is sad as it is meaningless.

The heart is important in whatever we do.  External gestures and actions may be impeccably correct and meticulously perfected but without the heart they are but mechanical or even morally hypocritical. Jesus is sensitively aware of this fact.  His recurring criticism of the scribes and Pharisees is directed towards their splendid following of the letter of the law (the Torah) while missing out on the crucially important interior disposition of a heart that truly loves God.  Jesus sees the bottom line of such form of righteousness:  There may be an admirable external appearance of love of God but beneath what meets the eye is a damning emptiness or, most probably, self-love.

Hence, in today’s gospel (Mt 5:17-37), we hear once again Jesus’ warning:  “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (v. 20).    

Christ looks to the heart. The different lessons that he teaches in the gospel reading are all pointing to the essential place of the heart in Christian morality. Certainly, our exterior behavior must follow God's will. But Jesus is trying to tell us that exterior behavior and appearances are not enough. To truly fulfill the law, the interior motives and the desires of the heart must first be in harmony with what God wills.

It is therefore crucial that as followers of Christ we make sure that our hearts beat for God.  It is important, as Jesus points out, that we safeguard our hearts from corruption.  Jesus identifies in the gospel reading three interior dispositions of which our hearts need to be purified: anger, lust, and dishonesty.

Anger.  The law of Moses clearly forbids killing; and violation to this commandment deserves judgment. But Jesus looks to the heart and warns us of the first instance of the desire for murder—anger:  “But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.”  Jesus is telling us not to allow anger to consume our hearts and to destroy our relationship with our brothers and sisters in the faith.  Instead of harboring grudges in our hearts, Jesus teaches us to desire and seek reconciliation so that before we offer gifts to the altar, we make it a point that we first settle peaceably with anyone whom we had some form of conflict.  

Lust.  The law commands thus, “You shall not commit adultery.” Again Jesus perfects the law by looking into our hearts and warning us of lust as the first instance of adultery: “But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Lust destroys our love and respect for others as we begin to desire in our hearts to use them as objects of our pleasure and self-indulgence. Jesus commands us to do what is necessary to avoid succumbing into this temptation as he instructs, “Cut your eyes off if this lead you to sin…” Instead of allowing lust to corrupt our hearts, our invitation is to exercise the virtue of purity of mind and heart and cultivate fidelity in marriage in order to strengthen all the more its unbreakable bond which is presently being challenged by a growing divorce mentality.

Dishonesty.  The law forbids taking a false oath.  Some Jews of Jesus' time had developed the habit of swearing oaths in the name of God if they meant to keep them, and swearing on something else if they meant to break them. Jesus again looks to the heart and warns us of dishonesty.  Jesus instructs us not to swear at all but to be truthful with what we say: Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Simple but clear. In our present social context of rampant corruption, our challenge is to be credible witnesses of truth and models of integrity.

Again, in whatever we do, the interior disposition of the heart matters most. It is incumbent in us then as disciples of Christ to always purify our hearts of sinful desires and malicious motives. Let us beg the grace of God always to fill our hearts with nothing but love of Him. With love in our hearts, we can surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. We may be incapable of doing grandiose things but we can certainly do small things but with great meaning.

Invitation to Greater Interiority (22nd Sunday Ordinary B)

Jim Wallis’ book, “The Soul of Politics” declares as it begins that “the world isn’t working.” In his introduction, Wallis reminds his reader of Mohandas Gandhi’s warning against the seven social sins: politics without principle, wealth without work, commerce without morality, pleasure without conscience, education without character, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice. For Wallis, these social sins are alarmingly the accepted practices in societies now! Hence, the emptiness of all existing institutions. The world isn’t working. He speaks of the American context. But his assertion may not be less true in our own places.

I would like to zero in, as a springboard to our reflection, on Gandhi’s seventh social sin--“Worship without sacrifice” for today’s gospel lends itself to a deeper reflection along this theme. Worship without sacrifice, in Gandhi’s critique of society, could refer to the emptiness of the formalism of worship. Without sacrifice, worship is just a show or even a mockery. It is sacraments without Jesus Christ; rituals without genuine love of God; religion without a soul. The gospel today can be a clear precaution against the tendency of our worship to move towards empty formalism.

In today’s gospel, we see Jesus once again in conflict with the Pharisees. The Pharisees are conscientiously insistent on the utmost necessity of following the rites of washing hands before eating as an expression of fidelity to Jewish tradition on ritual purity. For them, eating without washing hands makes one unclean. But for Jesus, it is not any external impurities that defile a person. What defiles comes from within, from the heart—the inner choices in the realm of conscience.  As He declares: “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… From their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice…”(Mk 7:15,21).

The Pharisees are meticulously concerned about external cleanliness; whereas, Jesus exposes to them the inadequacy and hypocrisy of this when there is no accompanying interior cleanliness of the heart. The Pharisees tend to degenerate their religion into a set of elaborate external rituals to be performed religiously. Jesus criticizes them for the lack of interior genuine love of God in all those rituals. Thus, He quotes the words of the prophet Isaiah: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (v.6).

When the heart is far from God, worship and religious rituals clearly become an empty and ridiculous human gesture incapable of nurturing a loving relationship with God. When the interior disposition is lacking, our liturgies and sacraments can become routines that we go through mechanically, repetitively, and, hence, meaninglessly. These liturgies cease to become real celebrations of the love and mercy of God in our lives. This scenario of an empty religion is what Jesus is most wary about.

Bishop Teodoro Bacani, facing a congregation of more or less 250 priests, once told this story to challenge his audience:

A lady came to confession. The priest asked her when her last confession was. The lady replied, “twenty years ago, Father.” The priest got angry and in a loud scolding voice said, “What?! Twenty years ago?! He continued asking for explanation angrily, “Why are you confessing only now? The lady explained with a trembling voice, “because the last time I went to confession, the priest got angry like you.”

Poor lady.  She’ll need another twenty years to muster her courage to confess once again! If this had ever happened, this could be an illustration of the sacrament of reconciliation without mercy. Jesus would be very furious witnessing this scenario.

This leads me to wonder how many of our liturgical celebrations in the parishes and chapels are real worship after the mind of Jesus. How many baptisms I’ve done became a meaningful acceptance of faith in the Lord? How many confessions really have celebrated the liberating mercy and the loving embrace of God? How many marriage ceremonies have been real celebrations of human love destined to mirror the self-sacrificing love of God? How many anointing have strengthened and consoled the sick because of the healing power of God or have helped the dying to leave with peaceful confidence?

There is really no way of measuring these. Nonetheless, today’s gospel invites us—ministers and faithful alike—to make our liturgical celebrations and rituals meaningful by bringing into them our hearts that passionately long for our loving God. When we celebrate this Eucharist, for instance, let our interior disposition be that of the psalmist who prays: “As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God” (Ps 42: 2).

The gospel today invites us towards greater interiority. We are invited not just to appear pure for everyone to see, but to really be pure inside our hearts for God to see. We are invited to make our worship not just a set of mechanical rituals but a truly meaningful way of encountering God and loving Him.

Let us not allow the dynamism of our Christian faith to degenerate into pharisaic formalism… lest we betray the Lord once more… lest we succumb to the temptation about which Gandhi expressed his warning--an empty religion—one that has no power to move individuals, animate communities, and transform societies.