Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” Thus he declared all foods clean. But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”

Avril Lavigne’s song "My Happy Ending" brings up the interesting and common topic of showing or how to show a person is in love. She sings: “Let’s talk this over; it’s not like we’re dead. Was it something I did? Was it something you said? Don’t leave me hanging in a city so dead, held up so high on such a breakable thread. You were all the things I thought I knew and I thought we could be. You were everything that I wanted, but we lost it. All this time you were pretending. So much for my happy ending." She says she will never have that happy ending because he and she were only pretending to love.

Jesus tells us that there can be empty reverence in matters of religion, that is, doing things of religion with the wrong motives. The motive for doing things of religion must be, Jesus says, to change the inside, that is, to get rid of the wicked designs that come from the deep recesses of the heart. “What comes out of a person,” Jesus says, “that is what defiles—from within people, from their hearts.”

Avril Lavigne’s song "My Happy Ending" easily leads us to the study of what comes from a person’s heart. The young man in the relationship was pretending that he was in love, so that he could get what he wanted. Such motivation does not lead to “happy endings,” as Avril Lavigne sings. What leads to happy endings is the giving to each other of what is inside, that is, that which comes from the deep recesses of one’s heart.

Jesus knew human nature. He knew that if we could spend time with externals, and not touch the “inside,” we would do it. Our task in life, in love and in religion, is to develop the “inside,” to make the inside better. We do it by studying the principles that Jesus Christ set up for us, realizing that the evils that he spoke of in the Gospel are all too real for us, and that we have to stay away from them by choosing instead to follow the pathway that Jesus trod.  

THOUGHT
 
PRAYER

Good and gracious God, as we look at the evils of the world, we realize that we may bring about some of them because of our human desires. Help us to look inside our hearts and souls to change the way we think by accepting the guidance of your Son. Be with us, we pray.

Questions, comments? Let me know. Email Fr. Mike

©2007 Capuchin Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America