Mark 7, 1-21: “The Pharisees and some scribes from Jerusalem gathered round and when they saw some of his disciples eating with unclean hands, that is to say unwashed, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat without having washed their arms up to their elbow, in accordance with traditions of the ancients, and they do not eat on returning from the public square before they have sprinkled themselves with water, and there are many other practices that they observe by tradition…

An excessive preoccupation with strict obedience to the laws and customs accumulated over the centuries had ended up making the spiritual life of the Pharisees unbearable. made the spiritual life of the Pharisees unbearable. Six hundred and thirteen precepts bound the faithful Jew in a straitjacket. The letter had ended up killing the spirit of the Law. As long as you faithfully practised the long list of observances, you considered yourself pure in the eyes of God, you were perfect, you could be self-satisfied: what could God possibly reproach to such scrupulous practitioners? Well, the essential thing: a lack of love!

Jesus tells us: do not equate purely human traditions (even if they are not without value) with the demands of the divine commandments, especially the great commandment of love.

This Gospel not only has the merit of denouncing false devotions, but it also it also sheds some interesting light on true guilt. The fussy demands of the Pharisees and certain Christian moralists have given rise to painful and sometimes destructive feelings of guilt. Don’t feel guilty when you’re not guilty’, Jesus tells us. You have hurt someone with an unfortunate word that has touched on a serious problem in their life of which you were unaware. You are not guilty, even if you feel that way.

Once we have recognised our true guilt, let us open ourselves up to God’s forgiveness through sincere contrition.

There’s no point in confessing if we don’t have the firm intention of not doing it again. The third lesson of this Gospel is the grace of loyalty, which will enable us to recognise our true motives and our true guilt in order to shed light on the dark areas of our hearts. Loyalty that is not afraid to ask God to enlighten us about ourselves: we are not in the best position to see our faults. As the Arab proverb says: The camel does not see its hump.

Marco Cattaneo, Director