Guarding Our Heart as the Source of Love Virtue

Weekly Missionary Reflection
22nd Ordinary Sunday, 01 September 2024
Deu. 4:1-2,6-8; Ps. 15:2-3a,3cd-4ab,5; Jas. 1:17-18,21b-22,27; Mrk. 7:1-8,14-15, 21-23.

Today’s Gospel tells how Jesus made the people aware of the importance of maintaining a pure heart. People can see the actions and behavior of others but mostly they miss looking into their hearts. We might experience how easy it is to judge other’s actions without understanding more deeply the real reason for their action.

For Jesus, maintaining the purity of heart is a priority. “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person, but the things that come out from within are what defile.” (Mrk. 7:15). Jesus said this to make the Pharisees and Scribes aware that they did not just obey the religious rules and ignored the nature of it. For Jesus, love and mercy for mankind are the source of any religious rules and rituals.

Jesus quoted the Prophet Isaiah “… As it is written: This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.” (Mrk. 7:6-7) Please note that most Scribes and Pharisees clung to traditions and religious practices to be seen as good. Sometimes their deed made them insensitive to others and forgot the essence of God’s teaching: to be a neighbor to others.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us humbly look into each of our hearts and reflect how far God’s love has been realized in our daily actions and words. How far our religious lives have been in line with the teaching of Christian love? Let us pray that we are always aware to keep our hearts clean, as the children of God that is where our true virtue comes. God bless.  

(Br. Kornelius Glossanto, SX – Xaverian Missionary) 

DAILY DEDICATED PRAYER

Lord, our Father, I present my today prayer, thought, word, work, joy and sorrow in the unity with Your Son, Jesus Christ, who always presents Himself in the Eucharist for the salvation of the world. May the Holy Spirit animating Jesus, also be my guidance and strength today so that I am ready to be the witness of Your love.

Together with Mary, Mother of Jesus, and the Church, in particular, I present my prayer for our Pope and apostle prayer of the Indonesian Church this month:

Universal Church Intent: For the cry of the earth
We pray that each one of us will hear and take to heart the cry of the Earth and victims of natural disasters and climatic change and that all will undertake to personally care for the world in which we live.s

Indonesian Church Intent: Biblical Figures
We pray that Catholic children, teenagers, and youth can find the figures in the Scripture as their idols and models in living their daily lives.

Amen.