Father Csaba’s reflection on the gospel Tuesday 6 February 2018
I was invited to a nice family and when I arrived there I found out that there was a slaughtering of a pig that day and they invited me very kindly to a nice dinner of pork sausages !!It was a Friday and I usually keep the fasting , meat-free day on Fridays ! I became uncertain for a moment …, then quietly I thought about it and started putting the commandments in order ! The commandment of love is God’s commandment , the customs of fasting , the stipulation of the Church , the human commandment ! I felt if I have to choose , then it became unambiguous that Jesus Christ’s commandment of love comes first !! I consumed the dinner heartily with my brethren without a word and then on my way home humbly I recited a decade of the Rosary , so that I could also express my love towards God on this day in my own way !!
Saint Augustin says “ You received a very short commandment : Love, and then do what you want . If you keep quiet do it out of love, if you shout , do it out of love : if you chide, do it out of love, if you spare someone , spare them out of love , the root of love should be within you , and from this root only good can arise .”
With the love of a lesser brother I encourage you , hearten you onto this royal road, the keeping the commandment of love,
Father Csaba
translated by dr k.e.
Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’
Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God)— then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’
Mark 7:1-13
Father Csaba’s reflection on the gospel Tuesday 6 February 2018