The Nazareth Page - A gospel meditation for your home. 

September 1, 2024 – Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Mark 7:1-23

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:
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Before I turned fifty, I really didn’t think much about my heart. Or its condition. I was active and exercised regularly. I even did some running. Played basketball and tennis. Even climbed to the summit of Pikes Peak on my fiftieth birthday.

Yet in the midst of a routine physical exam during my fifties I was asked if I ever had a heart test, the one when you trotted on a treadmill until exhaustion and then had your heart examined with a machine that recorded heart activity. As the technicians recorded my responses, I was able to see on the machine my own heart beating away. I was surprised by the surge of my amazement I felt at that moment. I heard myself saying something like it’s nice to meet you, heart. You are really wondrous. And awesome.

Then I learned some bad news. A problem was detected by the heart specialists. While I was not given details, I was immediately scheduled for a procedure. A further examination was needed by something called an angiogram. And if it was judged necessary, I would submit to what was called an angioplasty. Some kind of heart repair.

So it happened that a few days later a cardiologist inserted something called a stent in a major artery within my heart.  And I joined a club of tens of thousands with similar equipment. From the outside I looked the same. But inside I had dramatically changed. And no longer did I forget that beating organ that sends oxygenated blood to most every part of my body. I was made very aware of my heart.    

In this Sunday’s gospel Jesus is asked why some of his disciples seemed hardly interested in the externals of religious practice. The response of Jesus to this “criticism” prompted Jesus to point out what God valued as the most important part of being a good person. He did not say that religious practices were meaningless or unnecessary. But he said simply that those who only do the externals associated with religion may have to do more. He said that what was most important to God was what might be called “religion of the heart.”

The condition of the heart is the most important part of our lives. Just as I learned the importance of my own heart for physical survival, it is also the primary “place” we connect with God. In our hearts, we relate to what is most important for each of us. In our hearts our most treasured values reside. In our hearts we are connected with what makes us unique. Within the love in our hearts, we mostly find the presence of our loving God.

David M. Thomas, PhD