Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Year of Saint Joseph

Year of the Family "Amoris Laetitia The Joy of Love"

National Back to School Month

In other years: Saint John the Baptist

Readings of the Day

RB: Ch 71 Mutual Obedience

Mass: Dt 4:1-2, 6-8; Resp Ps 15; Jm 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27; Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

How great is the goodness, Lord, that you keep for those who fear you.

HAPPY ARE WE IF WE DO THE DEEDS OF WHICH WE HAVE HEARD AND SUNG. OUR HEARING THEM MEANS HAVING THEM PLANTED IN US, WHILE OUR DOING THEM SHOWS THAT THE SEED HAS BORNE FRUIT.

(From a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop, in Office of Readings, Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time)

In today's Gospel, the Pharisees with some scribes are busy pointing their fingers at Jesus and His disciples. In other words, they are busy finger pointing. "Why do your disciples do this, why don't they do that ...?" What Jesus' critics forget is that when they point one finger at Jesus and His disciples, three fingers point at themselves. Why is it that we spend so much energy on blaming others for the situations we find ourselves in, or using others as the excuse as to why we do or did this or that, or don't do this or that? Maybe it's better to accept responsibility for our words and actions, own them in other words. It's seems more productive in any case. Then we can be "doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding ourselves" (James 1:22). I can't change other people, but I can change myself. And Jesus does tell us: 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 (Mk 7:14-15). The Holy Father put it nicely in today's Angelus Address:

Today let us ask the Lord to free us from blaming others-like children: "No, it wasn't me! It's the other one, the other one ...". Let us ask in prayer for the grace not to waste time polluting the world with complaints, because this is not Christian. Jesus instead invites us to look at life and the world starting from our heart. If we look inside, we will find almost all that we despise outside. And if, sincerely, we ask God to purify our heart, that is when we will start making the world cleaner. Because there is an infallible way to defeat evil: by starting to conquer it within yourself. The first Fathers of the Church, the monks, when they were asked: "What is the path of holiness?", the first step, they used to say, was to blame yourself. Blame yourself. Blaming ourselves. How many of us, during the day, in a moment during the day or a moment during the week, are able to blame ourselves within? "Yes, this one did this to me, the other one ... that is barbarity ..." But me? I do the same things, or I do it this way ... It is wisdom, learning to blame yourself. Try to do it, it will do you good. It does me good, when I manage to do so, but it is good for us, it does everyone good.

(Pope Francis, Angelus Address, August 29, 2021)

Do not let your hearts go corrupt. Only corrupt things come from a corrupt heart.

(Francis Mahieu ocso, 1912-2002)

SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST,

SAINT JOSEPH,

PRAY FOR US.

Today's photo: A girasole (sunflower) for a Sunday, from our garden of delights.

© Gertrude Feick 2021