A RELIGION FROM THE HEART.

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME. YEAR B.
September 3, 2006.
(1st. Reading Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-8)
(2nd. Reading James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27)
(Gospel Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23)

A RELIGION FROM THE HEART.

The Christian religion can be defined as Christ living within us. A Christian, therefore, is someone who has Christ within himself.

As Christians, our identity comes from the fact that we have freely accepted Jesus within ourselves, into our heart, without any form of imposition, neither from external laws, nor from Christ himself. The gift of Christ to us is that he has found his way into our hearts knowing that, we human beings, could accept him or reject him.

The following are the three topics (concerning the definition of the Christian religion, that is, "Christ living within us") which we will address in this homily:
1. The Christian religion (that is, "Christ living in us") comes from within ourselves.
2. The Christian religions (that is, "Christ living in us") is not dictated by external commandments; and
3. The Christian religion (that is, "Christ living in us") is not lived for the sake of mere appearances.

1. The Christian religion (that is, "Christ living in us") comes from within ourselves. By virtue of our acceptance of Christ into ourselves, we have become other Christ. Christ is the one who lives in us, for we have accepted the gift of himself. Our life becomes an exteriorization of what we have in our hearts, and what comes out of our hearts is Christ himself.

Saint James (in the second reading) says: God wills "that we may be a kind of first fruits of his creatures" (James 1:18), and he adds: "Be doers of the word and not hearers only" (James 1:22). Christians can do so because Christ is within them. We have the internal motivation to live the life of Christ.

Christians who have Christ within themselves have the distinct responsibility to bring the life of Christ out to the world through the testimony of their own life, not by imposition.

2. The Christian religions (that is, "Christ living in us") is not dictated by external commandments. The enforcement of external commandments always implies an imposition which denies the person the option to accept or reject. Whether good or bad, laws (Civil, religious, or of any kind) are imposed upon men, and carry a coercive punishment which will follow if the law is violated. Whether the person is motivated or not, he is obligated to abide by the external law.

The inadequacies of the law to freely motivate man are incompatible with the freedom of the life in Christ. External commandments run the risk of leaving a person empty of freedom or incapable of properly using freedom. This could also hinder the person's spiritual and emotional maturity.

Furthermore, laws are made by man to address specific historical circumstances and may not be designed to adjust to changing conditions. The gospel tells us of the sad reality afflicting the Pharisees who, on account of their adherence to human precepts, had completely divorced themselves from God.

3. The Christian religion (that is, "Christ living in us") is not lived for the sake of mere appearances. According to the gospel, the religion of the Pharisees (like the religion of many modern individuals) seems to be restricted to a series of outward rituals performed to be seen and to give the impression that the ritual in itself and by itself is a manifestation of the life of God. This approach to religion is also incompatible with the Christian religion for it reduces "our life in Christ" to a series of external acts and rituals totally devoid of substance and content.

The rituals of the Christian Church exist only as external expressions of the life of Christ present in Christians who themselves celebrate the gift of Christ's life and their efforts to bring it to all human beings.

A Danger. Any time the Christian Church is tempted to become legalistic or ritualistic, it will run the risk of emptying herself of the life of Christ and thus falling to the level of a worldly institution. And, the powerful political and economic institutions of our world will use the Church for their own purposes which are not necessarily those of the Church(1).

A Joy. Christians today have a reason to be joyful: The Lord Jesus is telling us today that he is very close to us, in fact, that his life is within us, within our hearts and that we are called to bring Christ into the heart of the world.
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Footnotes.
(1) The so called "Separation of Church and State" is, for the most part, an illusion. History demonstrates that the State has used the Church to defend its prevalent ideology and socio-economic system. For instance since the mid XIX Century, with the inception of the modern socialist and communist ideologies, the Western capitalist countries needed all the support they could gather in order to combat the prospects of socializing private property. The Church came to the help with a wholesale condemnation of socialism and communism, based on their professed atheism, and presented itself as a staunch supporter of the capitalist socio-economic system. The Church, however was slow or opposed to recognize the humanistic merits of socialist economic tenants.
Another sign of the control which the State exerts over the Church is the weak or non existent opposition of the latter against the wars, the abuses and the expansionist adventures of the former.