Eucharistic incantation

      If I thought I was on a tear yesterday, this passage seems to rip the Pharisees a new one. It does make me pause all the more though for the truly important things of life.

    Yesterday I went on another kind of rant and not the one on these pages. My poor husband got an earful about putting dishes away. Not the stuff of quality for sure. I am a bit embarrassed. I am one of the first to speak of what is truly important. I know people who bemoan everything in their lives, who cannot let go of anything. It seems that they embrace heartache and wallow in self pity. I have seen too many loved ones pass on. Heartache and agony over loss. Illness that can be debilitating.  It does no good at all to indulge in such things. What it does do is distract us from love and deprives us of the prize.

      So what is truly important?  Years ago in a 5000 family parish communityin which I lived, a Deacon decided it would be an addition to the meaning of our Thanksgiving service if he and his wife supplied home made Eucharist bread. More than wafers and less than bread, it would be more substantial in the transubstantiation of the service.  The issue, and there is always an issue, highlights my thoughts. The good Deacon and his wife used a 'recipe' that called for a small amount of honey to be added to the bread. That it seems is an immoral and mortal flaw. It invalidates the Eucharist. It was blasphemous, or so some said.  Personally, who cares? Is there some magical incantational recipe that is used to make Eucharist wafers? If one truly believes in such things, isn't God the one who consecrates, not even the Priest?

     So I ask again, what is truly important?  This passage and a closer look at our lives is always worth some sober introspection.

Matthew 23:13-26

‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

‘Woe to you, blind guides, who say, “Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.” You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? And you say, “Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.” How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.

‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practised without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.