2/9/11 YOUR VIRTUOUSNESS, or LACK OF, IS NOT DEPENDENT UPON THE FOOD YOU EAT

2/9/11 cblog YOUR VIRTUOUSNESS, or LACK OF, IS NOT DEPENDENT UPON THE FOOD YOU EAT; Incarn.830a [Fr. Frmal ] m: "Jesus declares all foods clean..must have seemed shocking to pharisees, scribes, sadducees, even to the common man [at that time] ..must have seemed blasphemous...but Jesus was saying evil comes from inside the person..not outside..my virtue or lack of doesn't depend on what kind of breakfast I eat ..Jesus speaks of the soul..not what food comes in, but what is already inside us..church has taught since aquinas..need good habits..grace..virtue..these develop ovee time..free will..not dependent upon what kind of food we eat..statement..down to earth..within each & every human..origen..writes on this..re speech..how destructive speech can be..not defiled by food..if in bondage to letter of law..in bondage when lips speak recklessly..origin focuses on speech..good example of what comes from within..Jesus wants us to recall..be more attentive to speech today..does it hurt neighbor ? Offer prayer of thanks..pray we can avoid gossip, damaging speech, ....one way to live out gospel today..."

Gen 2:4b-9, 15-17 At the time when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens while as yet there was no field shrub on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted for the LORD God had sent no rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil, but a stream was welling up out of the earth and was watering all the surface of the groundB the LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life and so man became a living being Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and he placed there the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God made various trees grow that were delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it. The LORD God gave man this order:“You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.”

h your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. R. O bless the Lord, my soul!

Mark 7.14-23 "Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them,“Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them,“Are even you likewise without understanding? 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?”(Thus he declared all foods clean.)“But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”