Overview:

Wednesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

A Reflection for Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

“All these evils come from within and they defile.” (Mark 7:23)

Find today’s readings here.

My colleagues and I in Catholic media sometimes joke that it would be easier to practice the faith if we didn’t work for the church.

How could that be? We’re immersed in a Catholic work environment, surrounded and supported by fellow believers, with the sacraments readily available. This would seem a recipe for a fruitful faith journey!

And it is. But it’s not always easy. To understand why, read the Gospel for today from the beginning of Mark chapter seven, in which Jesus and the Pharisees find themselves in a debate over intra-Jewish faith questions.

Catholic media is one of those spaces in which you find people of very different backgrounds and perspectives who are equally passionate about the faith they are invested in. Think, for example, about the Communion wars over abortion and heated debates about restricting the Traditional Latin Mass or whether or not Pope Leo should continue Pope Francis’ mission of synodality. When perspectives clash, Catholics can get trapped in exhausting, emotionally-charged debates.

No non-believer in my family or circle of friends cares about any of these debates. Simply mentioning the word “synodality” would be enough for their eyes to glaze over. For a community that insists its sole purpose is to evangelize and witness in a credible way to non-believers, it seems odd we would spend so much energy, emotion and resources on intra-Catholic debates.

But as the Gospels show, Jesus too spent much of his energy on intra-community issues. It’s worth identifying and reflecting on what motivated him to do so. He seems to have followed in the footsteps of many of the great Jewish prophets by stressing that external expressions of faith and internal conversion must always go together. They are two sides of the same coin, so to speak. Living an authentically spiritual life always presents a risk of bifurcation, which obscures the reality of God.

It’s not that externals don’t matter. Jesus came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it (Matt. 5:17). But all of us who are people of faith can acknowledge that we sometimes overemphasize spiritual realities that we can outwardly perceive, identify and critique, whether our own or someone else’s. It can be much harder to reflect on and live out of the unseen spiritual reality that is our relationship with God. Yet that unseen reality is the core of what it means to be religious and the source of any genuine public expression of faith.

We should remember this in our intra-Catholic debates over access to the Eucharist, restricting the traditional Latin Mass, synodality and other contentious issues. Before engaging in any of them, whether on social media or at a parish meeting, we should acknowledge our susceptibility to purely externalizing religiosity and hold onto Jesus’ reminder that “evils come from within.” That really is the heart of the matter.

Sebastian Gomes is America's executive editor of audio and video.