ePriest.com: Your Spanish Homily

Readings

Reading I: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8
Psalm: Psalms 15:2-3, 3-4, 4-5
Reading II: James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27
Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Preaching Tip

Taking a View of the Pew

It's healthy for us to be reminded that to hit a target, we need to aim at a target. The worst thing we can do is give a "general homily." Here's how one experienced preacher explains it:

  • "If we pride ourselves on being communicators of Christ's message, we can do no less than those who pride themselves on being our secular society's communicators.
  • They study and learn their audience as thoroughly as possible. Television people can tell you, for example, what specific groups are tuned into TV at almost any hour of the day or night.
  • They have charts on the educational level, the income status, the viewing habits, the occupational breakdown of just this single segment of the viewing public.
  • They tailor and target their programs - their message or their entertainment - to fit this audience. Granted, they come up with shows that die on the screen right before our eyes...
  • Yet, they are thorough in learning their publics. More times than not, they succeed in their communicating. Certainly, when they fail, they research why they failed and seldom make those costly mistakes again.
  • Can we be any less thorough than those whom Christ described as "the children of this generation"?
  • He said they were wiser than the children of light.
  • Maybe, it's time that we shifted the balance and wised up. When we prepare to preach we must realize that the best vantage point to take is one with a view of the pew."

James F. Finley, CSP, Wake Up and Preach, p28

B To 22                                                                                   

MANOS LIMPIAS

¡Cuántas veces el Señor reprocha a los guardianes de la Ley el haberla vaciado de sentido y quedarse en las meras apariencias! No está bien ensuciarse las manos; pero ¿de que sirve que estén limpias si están vacías? Si la práctica de ritos exteriores no va acompañada de la pureza de corazón, se convierte en un nido de maldades. Del corazón sale lo que mancha al hombre. La queja de Cristo también vale para nosotros. "Este pueblo me honra con los labios, pero su corazón está lejos de mí.

Hermanas y hermanos:

1. A los fariseos de todos los tiempos siempre les han importado mucho los gestos  externos. A Cristo no tanto. Dice que lo limpio y lo sucio del hombre no está en las  manos sino en el corazón. Y esto va por todos nosotros: por los cristianos que vamos por ahí con nuestras manos cristianamente lavadas pero con nuestro corazón cristianamente  sucio.

Cristo no dijo: "Bienaventurados los que se lavan las manos, porque así verán los  hombres que estáis limpios". Cristo dijo: "Bienaventurados los limpios de corazón, porque ellos verán a Dios". A El le iba a condenar a muerte un hombre que tuvo mucho cuidado de que el pueblo  viera que se lavaba muy bien las manos. Lavarse las manos es fácil; lo difícil es lavarse el corazón.

2. La vida de los hombres está rodeada de  tradiciones. Son como el ambiente en que se desarrolla gran parte de nuestra existencia: la  cena de nochebuena, el bautizo de los hijos, la primera comunión, la fiesta del patrón del  pueblo. Algunos las consideran reliquias del pasado de las que hay que liberarse pero caen en otras alienaciones peores: la moda musical, la droga, el libertinaje sexual. El  formalismo y la moda son la grave amenaza que pesa sobre las tradiciones humanas y  cristianas. Un gesto exterior puede reducirse a un rito sin sentido pero hay algo que lo hará vivo y vivificante: realizarlo con espíritu sobrenatural.

3. Es la intención la que hace grandes o mezquinas  nuestras palabras y nuestras obras. El hombre vale por lo que vale su corazón, es decir, por aquello que desea, busca y ama  desde el fondo de sí mismo. Es en el corazón donde el hombre  acoge o rechaza a Dios, donde orienta su vida entera. Hay un signo  claro que puede indicarnos lo que nuestro corazón ama y desea: la vida real que llevamos.  La santidad no está en las cosas sino en el corazón del hombre y en los comportamientos morales que de él brotan.

Hermanas y hermanos: Procuremos no caer nosotros también en esta hipocresía que Jesús ha  criticado tan duramente. Esforcémonos en participar en los ritos de la Iglesia con pureza de intención. Que el pan y el vino de la Eucaristía nos recuerden siempre que lo  que vale la pena es el estilo de hombre que Jesús vivió fielmente hasta la muerte.  Que así sea.

English Translation

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B     
                                                                                                  CLEAN HANDS
 
How often Our Lord reproaches the guardians of the Law for having emptied it of meaning and keeping up mere appearances! It’s not good to dirty your hands, but what good is there to keep them clean if they are empty? If the practice of external rites is not accompanied with purity of heart, it becomes a nest for evil. What makes a man unclean comes from the heart. Christ’s complaint is also true for us: “'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

Brothers and sisters,

1. The Pharisees of all times have always cared more about external gestures. Not so with Christ. He says that what is clean or dirty in man doesn’t have to do with his hands, but with his heart. And this goes for all of us: for Christians who walk around with their hands “Christianly clean,” but with their heart “Christianly dirty.”

Christ did not say, “Blessed are those who wash their hands, because men shall thus see that they are clean.” Christ said, “Blessed are the clean of heart, because they shall see God.” He was going to be condemned by a man who took care that the nation saw him wash his hands well. To wash one’s hands is easy; what is difficult is to wash one’s heart.
 
2. Man’s life is surrounded by traditions. They are like the environment in which a great part of our existence develops: Christmas Eve dinner, our children’s baptism, First Holy Communion, the nation’s patronal feast day. Some consider these relics from the past from which we must be freed, but they fall into other worse maladies: musical fads, drugs, sexual decadence. Just going through the motions and living by fads are a grave threat that weighs over man’s Christian and human traditions. An external gesture can become just a senseless rite, but there is something that can make it come alive and make it life-giving: doing it with a supernatural spirit.  
 
3. Our words or acts are made great or petty by the intention behind them. A man is worth what his heart is worth, that is, what he desires, seeks and loves from the bottom of his soul. It is in his heart that man welcomes or rejects God, where he directs his entire life. There is a clear sign that tells us what our heart loves and desires: the real life we lead. Holiness is not in things, but in the heart of men and in the moral behavior that springs from it.

Brothers and sisters, let us not fall into this hypocrisy that Jesus has criticized so harshly. Let us make an effort to participate in the Church’s rites with purity of intention. Let the Eucharistic bread and wine remind us that what has value is the lifestyle that Jesus lived faithfully up to death. Amen.