A Family Affair

Loving God and loving our neighbor

02/11/2025

Mark 7:1-13 When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.) So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, "Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?" He responded, "Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts. You disregard God's commandment but cling to human tradition." He went on to say, "How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition! For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and Whoever curses father or mother shall die. Yet you say, 'If someone says to father or mother, "Any support you might have had from me is qorban"' (meaning, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.

In the Catholic Church we do lots of gestures at Mass that have a twofold purpose, both practical and spiritual. For example, we use incense at Mass because there are references to incense being offered by the angels in heaven in Ps 141 and Rv 8. That is the spiritual purpose of incense at Mass: we imitate on earth the angelic ministry in the heavenly liturgy.

But incense also serves a very practical purpose: its sweet aroma is not only appealing, it covers other not-so-pleasant odors. For instance, at the Basilica of Santiago de Compostela in Spain there is a huge, life-sized thurible that billows out incense filling the whole church with smoke. Why? Because the church is also filled with pilgrims who just walked 500 miles and had not taken a bath in weeks!

We see another spiritual/practical gesture when the priest washes his hands in the middle of Mass. Have you noticed that hand washing? Its spiritual side is captured by the words he whispers: “Lord, wash away my iniquities; cleanse me from my sins.” That ablution (washing), in other words, is a reminder of Baptism when water washed away our sins.

But it also served a practical purpose, at least in the past, when people offered not cash or checks (or Venmo) during the collection and at the presentation of the gifts, but brought forward eggs, and chickens, and other natural, farm products. The priest washed his hands because they were literally – and not just spiritually – dirty. I saw this little saying in a bathroom recently: “Wash your hands and say your prayer, Jesus and germs are everywhere.”

In the gospel today we see that Catholics inherited this twofold tradition from our Jewish ancestors. But Jesus teaches the Jews that they have so over-emphasized the spiritual meaning of liturgical gestures that they have all but forgotten the practical meaning. In a sense, the Jews have stressed the love of God (the spiritual) to the detriment of love of neighbor (the practical).

Jesus cites two examples: scrupulously washing hands, and the practice of qorban (giving to the Church while neglecting your parents). While these practices began with good intentions as reminders to balance both love of God and love of neighbor – they had deteriorated to an exclusively one-sided relevance. You could love God while ignoring your neighbor, or at its extreme application, you could love God even while hating your neighbor. That hypocrisy is what Jesus condemns.

We can see a family application of this delicate balance of love of God and love of neighbor, the spiritual and the practical sides of faith. That is, we often find it easy to love our parents but we fight bitterly with our brothers and sisters. But what do parents want more than anything in the world? They want their children to love each other.

How hypocritical it sounds in the ears of mom and dad when a son or daughter cozies up to them and says, “I love you mom and dad, but I cannot stand the sight of my sister!” That is exactly how the heart of our heavenly Father feels when we cozy up to him in prayer, at Mass, at Adoration, during the rosary, and whisper to God, “I love you Lord, but I cannot stand so-and-so.”

We cannot pit the love of God against the love of neighbor. They are two sides of the same coin of Christian faith. In other words, if you cannot love your neighbor, then you do not truly love God. Why? Because your neighbor is your brother and sister, and we are all children of God. Our faith is a family affair. And all good parents want their children to love each other.

Praised be Jesus Christ!