Message of Abbot Paul - Wednesday 8th February 2023

It’s impossible to be about our daily work at the moment without thinking of the people affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, and the extreme suffering and trauma they are confronting. It’s truly heart-breaking. And that continues to be true of the war in Ukraine, to which I can see no just or peaceful conclusion. Today I also received further news both in the media and personally from friends in Nicaragua of the persecution of the Church in that sad country. I tend not to fall into despair because of my faith in the Resurrection of Jesus and the hope of eternal life, but I do get very sad, very low. I often hear in my head that song that was so popular in the 60s, “Where have all the flowers gone?” and the line, “When will they ever learn?” The words haunted me then and they haunt me now.

 

​Our Gospel passage carries on from yesterday’s: we’re reading Mark, (Mk 7: 14-23). Jesus wants to go deeper with the crowds into what he was saying to the scribes and Pharisees. “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.’” Jesus points to what is truly unclean, our thoughts and actions, and asks us to think about the source of evil. The Pharisees would have us believe that the keeping of a ritualistic law guarantees purity and goodness, but Jesus says this can’t be so. It’s what goes on in our hearts and minds that cause us to be unclean and impure.

 

​Later, at home, he explains to his disciples. “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? 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.” We know full well that what Jesus says is true and we have experienced it for ourselves. The only remedy is repentance and conversion, baptism, faith and grace. Let us pray today that the Holy Spirit will keep the flame of faith alive in our hearts and, through faith, the presence of Christ in our lives. Lord, only you can purify my soul and cleanse my heart. Make me a temple of the Holy Spirit and a living member of your Body. Amen.