11 February 2026, Wednesday of the 5th week in Ordinary Time
1Kings 10:1-10; Mark 7:14-15, 17-23
Homily
The Gospel reading we have just heard is a continuation of yesterday's. Mark recounts one of the difficult and painful encounters between Jesus and the authorities of the people—that is, the Pharisees and Scribes—who had set themselves the task of finding fault with him in order to get rid of him. Jesus once again calls them hypocrites, because they have come to place so much importance on external religious practices that they have lost sight of the relationship between these practices and the personal experience of God.
Already in the Old Testament, several centuries after Moses, the great prophets of Israel had denounced the separation between religious practice and union with God – a practice by which people tried to ease their conscience without having to practise justice and solidarity. (See, for example, Isa 1:10-18; 58:1-12; Amos 5:18-25; Zechariah 7). When the Pharisees and scribes reproached Jesus for the fact that his disciples did not comply with the ritual requirements established by their traditions, Jesus could easily respond by quoting one of these prophetic invectives.
Jesus' teaching in this Gospel takes place in three stages and on three different levels. To the Pharisees and Scribes, who are not interested in receiving his teaching but rather in setting traps for him to lead him to his downfall, Jesus simply reproaches them for their hypocrisy and the fundamental error that has led them to prefer their own precepts to the supreme law of love of God and neighbour. To the crowd, still willing to receive his teaching, he affirms the nature of true purity before God. This resides in the righteousness of the heart and not in having performed or omitted certain actions. Finally, he adds a warning to his disciples. Yes, they must guard against all impurity—not the ritual impurities of which the Pharisees and Scribes had drawn up long lists, but the impurity that comes from a false heart, which breeds misconduct, theft, murder, etc. All of this can be summed up in a pithy formula: what makes a person impure is not what they eat, but what comes out of their heart, if their heart is not totally given to God.
Armand VEILLEUX