The Lord our God did not just Will us into being, He lovingly fashioned us. And knowing we will bring harm upon ourselves for lack of complete knowledge and wisdom, He willed that we rely on Him till perhaps we were ready. How much have changed from the very beginning? Aren’t we still disobedient? Impatient? Stubborn? Wilful?
Are our hearts and minds connected to the Lord our God? Do we constantly seek His wisdom, knowledge and guidance? For if we are not connected to the source of life then we are likely to go awry and lost to the darkness. For indeed all that is good comes from within us when our hearts are connected to all that is good, the Lord our God. It is when we are disconnected that evil lurks to pounce!
Lord Jesus Christ You are the vine and we are the branches. Let us never be apart from You. Amen
First reading
Genesis 2:4-9,15-17 †
The Lord God fashioned man out of dust
At the time when the Lord God made earth and heaven there was as yet no wild bush on the earth nor had any wild plant yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, nor was there any man to till the soil. However, a flood was rising from the earth and watering all the surface of the soil. The Lord God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being.
The Lord God planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. The Lord God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden. The Lord God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it. Then the Lord God gave the man this admonition, ‘You may eat indeed of all the trees in the garden. Nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die.’
Gospel
Mark 7:14-23
It is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean
Jesus called the people to him and said, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that goes into a man from outside can make him unclean; it is the things that come out of a man that make him unclean. If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to this.’
When he had gone back into the house, away from the crowd, his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them, ‘Do you not understand either? Can you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot make him unclean, because it does not go into his heart but through his stomach and passes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he pronounced all foods clean.) And he went on, ‘It is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. For it is from within, from men’s hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean.’
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