Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
God loves us too much to let us have only the appearance of holiness on the outside. Instead, God ardently desires to transform us entirely from within.
In the Gospel today, Jesus calls out the Pharisees who attend to the external traditions of their elders while simultaneously disregarding God’s commandments and neglecting the inner life of the spirit. To be sure, Jesus is not saying that there is anything wrong with washing one’s hands. Likewise, Jesus is not saying that there is anything wrong with external acts of religion and devotion. But the Pharisees at that time diverted their attention from what was the reason behind all the religious practices to attend to the superficial, thereby eventually going astray from God’s commandments and will.
But, if the Pharisees had erred in this regard, the second reading today provides us with the remedy. In the letter of James, we are told to “humbly welcome the word that has been planted in [us] and is able to save [our] souls.” To be transformed from within, we are called to open up the depths of our soul to the observance of God’s word in Jesus Christ. We are encouraged to go further than the mere observance of externals in order to peer into the reason behind outward religious practice. Jesus wants us to get to the heart of the matter so that his perfect gift of grace might get to the matter of our heart. Then, with our inner life renewed, the holiness indwelling within us that descends from God above will naturally overflow to direct our external practices according to the will of the Lord.