HOMILY OF WEDNESDAY OF THE FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Genesis 2:4-9,15-17, Mark 7:14-23
THEME: NOTHING IS UNCLEAN
QUOTES: Nature is perfect. It fights back when it is misused. The battle of nature can be disastrous when its laws are contravened unchecked.
In the first reading we read, “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.”
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil has something to do with the power of discrimination or segregation. Nothing made by God is intrinsically bad or evil. It becomes evil by how we use it or how see it. Though we are endowed with freewill, God does not want us to use that faculty to put dent on what he has made. When things are allowed to stay in their rightful place, they produce their best result. But when we jettison the law of moderation, we run the risk of a fight back.
The Lord said in the gospel,
“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” by this the Lord pronounced all foods clean.
We must remember that from the beginning God made all things good, but how we use them can produce both good and bad result. That is the product of human choice. In the world today, we can see human impacts on nature through overpopulation, pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation and the like. And these have led to climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and environmental hazards.
Hence, we need to censure our preferences. We need to put our appetite in check. Life is beautiful when we take it gently. Nature balances itself. And we are safer when we align ourselves with nature.
May all that the Lord has made work for our good through the Christ our Lord. Amen.
