Youth for Christ Sto. Tomas Cluster

08022012

1 Kings 10:1-10 / Psalm 37:5-6, 30-31, 39-40

Gospel: Mark 7:14-23

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

SOUL FOOD

Juggling between all the things that I have to do, and thinking of actually doing the things that needs to be accomplished; finding time to open and read the bible regularly is a daily struggle for me. I keep on reminding myself that I have to read and reflect on God’s word everyday. Unfortunately, there are days that my bible does remain unopened. But for every time I fail to actually open the bible, I remember how the word of God feeds my soul. Then it makes me reflect, how hungry can my soul be? Do I take in as much as I need for my spiritual life to be healthy?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus said that what we take in will make us clean. This affirms me of the very reason of why I read the bible. Being able to feed the body should not be in any way different from feeding the soul. According to Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, “What we feed in our souls grows in us, forms us. What I immerse myself in, down deep inside of me where the soul is, I will become.” As YFCs, more so as Catholics, It should not be new to us to at least read the bible. Just how eating is a necessity for the body, we must also supply our soul a daily supplement of God’s words.

Writer: Dane Cruz | Artist: Kevin Muico

via CFCYOUTHFORCHRIST.NET