St Scholastica

Today is Wednesday the 10 February, the feast of St Scholastica, in the 5th week of Ordinary Time.  

Ladysmith Black Mambazo sing: ‘Inhliziyo Zethu’. ‘You will make my heart pure’.   A pure heart is a heart that is open to God, that doesn’t seek its own advantage, but wants whatever God wants.  As I enter into prayer today, I ask for that openness of heart.  I ask the Lord to lead my heart to him, to guide me in the way he wants me to go.    

Today’s reading is from the Gospel of Mark.    

Mark 7:14-23

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’ When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

In today’s reading Jesus indicates the heart as the site of our motivations, leading to good or bad thoughts and actions. What has come from your heart so far today? What influences your decisions and choices? What helps you to keep your heart clean and pure?  

What about the string of bad intentions that Jesus says can come from the human heart? Which of these do you need to address in your life? Ask God for help to begin this important work today.  

Listen again to the reading.  

In these last moments pray that the Holy Spirit will create in you a clean and pure heart.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.