Mc 7,1-13 – Saint Scholastica, Virgin – Memory
“You are truly skilled in circumventing God’s commandment to observe your tradition.” The reproach that Jesus addresses to the scribes and Pharisees in today’s Gospel page is, in reality, a reproach that should push us all to seriously examine our consciences. In fact, we too can fall into the terrible exploitation of faith and religion to justify our ideas, our sensitivities, our ways of seeing.
Sometimes even Christianity and our ecclesial environments can be filled with traditions that we sacralize to the point of making them more important than the Gospel itself. A procession, a festival, a theological vision, a way of managing an ecclesial experience, the style of a movement can become absolute criteria, replacing the Word. Jesus warns against similar stratagems that seem to want to preserve our tastes above all rather than put us in a true relationship with God. When this happens, faith it ceases to be a meeting and becomes an ideology; it stops being a path and becomes a fence.
And whoever acts like this, in reality, not only distances himself from the Gospel, but can live exactly the opposite of his proposal. One can then become ruthless, lose empathy, forget mercy and compassion – that is, in one word, become inhuman – and all this paradoxically with strictly religious motivations. It is the greatest risk: defending God without resembling Him anymore.
Tuesday 10 February 2026 – (Saint Scholastica, Virgin – Memory)
