“Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine? … But what comes out of a person; that is what defiles. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile” (Mk 7:18-23).
22nd Sunday in OT, Cycle B-2021. 29 August 2021, posted 4 September 2021. Dt 4:1-2, 6-8 + Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27 + Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
God was defied.
“God in the beginning created human beings and made them subject to their own free choice. If you choose you can keep the commandments; it is loyalty to do His will. There are set before you fire and water. To whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand. Before man are life and death, whichever he chooses shall be given him” (Sirach 15:14-17).
“I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 31:19b).
Modern man chose to defy God, his Creator, and modernity was hostility to Him. The Creator was blasphemed in public, and His Name was mocked in entertainment. His Image was desecrated in visual arts, and His Commandments were flouted in lifestyle.
Idolatry, superstition, and occult.
Hero worship, fanaticism, and narcissism.
Irreverence, sacrilege, and heresy.
Pride, arrogance and malice.
Anger, profanity, and murder.
Dishonesty, deceit, and theft.
Lying, calumny, and detraction.
Pornography, indecency, and obscenity.
Licentiousness, adultery, and divorce.
Envy, greed, gluttony, and avarice.
In public places, the Ten Commandments were torn down; shrines and sacred images were smashed; and Crosses were uprooted.
In public activity, prayer was banned, religious expression was tabooed, and proselytizing was proscribed.
In society, believers were persecuted, witnesses were prosecuted, and both discriminated against, and even bankrupted.
Nature was deified.
“God created mankind in His Image… male and female He created them. God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all living things that crawl on the earth…” (Genesis 1:27-30). The weeds and the trees, the beasts and the birds were to live and die in order to keep man alive.
Modern man, however, considered the divine concept and precept obstacles to progress in this life.
The human concept was: there is no afterlife, and heaven is on earth, here and now, and there is nothing after life—“Eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Nature was, therefore, Mother, deserving the deference and reverence that God, so-called The Father, demanded for Himself alone. Modern man believed that Nature was the god that deserved the deference and reverence.
Generation after generation, man experimented desperately with concepts and precepts to build Heavenly Nature.
Animism and occult.
Divination and fortune telling.
Yoga and Transcendental Meditation.
Climate Activism and Gaia Philosophy.
Nature’s rights and animal rights.
Bodybuilding and beauty commerce.
Sexual liberation and aberration.
Homosexuality and transgenderism.
Eugenics and birth control.
Abortion and euthanasia.
Human cloning and embryonic cell therapy.
Blue Sunday and 24/7.
Utilitarianism and secularism.
It is funny that man be obsessed with the laws of nature he cannot control, but neglect the Laws of God he cannot escape. For the modern man who defied God and deified nature, Saint Paul prophesied:
“They became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened… God handed them over to degrading passions… to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper… They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless… Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Read full text in Romans 1:21-32).
Man was defiled.
If man was created in the Image of God, he is to be treated with a dignity not accorded to other creatures in nature. Unlike things of nature, he is not an expendable resource of nature that is exploited and valued only when useful. Unlike nature, he is protected from the laws of the jungle—“might-is-right” and “survival of the fittest.”
Since man was created in the image of God, when the Image of God was defiled, then man, himself, was defiled. When God and His Laws were defied, nothing restrained modern man from going berserk.
Authority, family, and social breakdown.
Misunderstanding, animosity, and division.
Lawlessness, confusion, and violence.
Conflict, terrorism, and war.
Costly victory, defeat, and retreat.
Mass murder, massacre and genocide.
Calamity, devastation, and desolation.
Illness, disease, and epidemic.
Insecurity, restlessness, and anxiety.
Loneliness, emptiness, and depression.
Injustice, exploitation, and corruption.
Insatiable hunger, thirst and desires.
Compulsion, obsession, and addiction.
Mankind was defiled most by those who defied God the most, and deified nature above all. Where modern man established heaven on earth, hell broke loose. Despair and death reign until modern man repents and worships the Creator, Father God, rather than the creature, Mother Nature. VSS
Picture credit: Top picture–Worshipping the Golden Calf–picture clipped by JosephMatters.org from Cecille the Mille’s “The Ten Commandments.” Second middle picture–Pope Francis honors Pachamama, the Amazonian idol of fertility–from WordPress.com. Third middle picture–Fiat Lux projecting marine animals on the sacred Basilica of Saint Peter, byLightGate.com. Fourth middle picture, Hiroshima city before and after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, by pinterest. Bottom picture–The Killing Fields, Pol Pot’s genocide, from ebay.
BrieflectionS 