“Abba Anthony taught that while a solitary person escapes the external wars of hearing, speaking, and seeing, the constant battle remains within the heart.” Put in different words, purity of heart is and must be the core goal of our spiritual life, our anchor for striving for holiness. The caution here is: we should not fool ourselves into believing that external purity habits do equate to a holy life. Experience teaches that religious performance can easily mask a prideful and spiteful heart. Our words and reactions are a reflection of what truly sits deep within our hearts.
Two ladies who belong to the Legion of Mary had just finished their prayers and the Rosary before Mass; now they had to arrange the altar, putting on cloth. Before we knew it, they were pushing and pulling each other over who had to decorate the altar that day. What happened to the Rosary and prayers they had prayed a moment ago?
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees as to why his disciples don’t observe the tradition of washing hands before a meal. Jesus responds by shifting the focus from external observances to the interior life: What defiles a person is not the ritual neglect of external customs but the disordered desires, thoughts, and words that proceed from a corrupted heart. Knowing the Pharisees and Scribes well for their hypocrisy, always putting on a show so that they appear to obey God’s word in their external practices while inwardly they harbor evil desires and intentions, Jesus boldly refers to them as blind guides. He warns that those who blindly follow people like them risk falling into destruction.
Without despising the Jewish traditions, Jesus illustrates what is most important in our lives as his followers. We need to place our focus mainly on our inner transformation as opposed to mere conformity and empty perfunctory acts of piety. For Jesus, what mattered most was what comes out of the heart. What comes out of our mouth shows who we are; it shows what we value in our hearts. Either we will hear words that reflect God’s love, compassion, and mercy, or we will hear all types of vile and hatred. What comes out of the heart will depict if we are self-centered or centered on the needs of others.
Jesus demonstrates that God gave the laws to teach his people of the old covenant the importance of offering right sacrifices and worship to God with a clean conscience. Ritual purification was intended to show people the necessity of being not just outwardly clean, but inwardly clean in thoughts as well as in deeds. The Pharisees and Scribes had already abandoned that for zealous pretense with strict and fake external observances and performances.
For us followers of Christ, Jesus calls on us to real inward transformation. Without neglecting our acts of piety, receiving sacraments, attending the Eucharist, being faithful to our prayer life, and engaging in ascetic practices like fasting, we must get our hearts right. If our hearts are like Jesus’ heart, then all else will follow. Pious acts are not useless in our journey of faith, but when they become a substitute for genuine faith and compassion, they lead us away from God. Jesus’ message is clear: strive for the pure interior, the real person, and we will please the Lord with internal conversion and renewal. Let our prayer be to strive with all our might to bring the interior activity into harmony with God. Let us be clean, genuine, and authentic with our intentions and motivations as we go about our faith journey.