CULTIVATE AND CARE FOR IT
Do we have good and grateful thoughts, or are they selfish and greedy
thoughts? It is up to us to choose which thoughts to have.
We are one with the
world around us: "The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the
ground" (Gen 2:7). This is the same ground from which our heavenly Father
makes the rest of creation. It is in this passage where we understand our
stewardship of the earth and its relation to our oneness with all of creation.
We are "to
cultivate and care for it" (Gen 2:15), our earth. We have many ties to the
animal and plant world; we are all interdependent. If there is going to be
anything morally bad in the earth, the guilt lies in the human being, the only
being with free will. As Jesus stresses in the Gospel of Mark today,
"Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the
things that come out from within are what defile" (Mk 7:15). Mysteriously,
we alone, out of all of creation, can be the source of trouble, sin, and
disaster. What comes out of our minds, hearts, and imaginations is very
important.
Our challenge today
is that we need to know that God our Father is the source of everything good,
and that He has every right to place limitations on our behaviors. God makes it
perfectly clear to the "living being," that defiance of God will be
harmful to us. Jesus says that it isn't food that makes a person unclean, but
what comes from the heart that determines if we are clean or unclean. Do we
have good and grateful thoughts, or are they selfish and greedy thoughts? It is
up to us to choose which thoughts to have.
Today we can use
the responsorial psalm as our prayer for a clean heart: "O bless the Lord,
my soul!" (Ps 104). May we look to You, O God, and please send forth Your
spirit, and renew the face of the earth. Amen!