It's time to regain our bearings
Human hearts need to be healed from ‘evil intentions’ which undermine social equilibrium
Readings for 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time | 29 August 2021
Deuteronomy 4.1-2, 6-8 | Psalm 15 | James 1.17-18, 21-22, 27 | Mark 7.1-8, 14-15, 21-23
In his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez describes the journey of the Buendia family through uncharted territory to create an idyllic settlement where all human impulses are “liberated” from moral norms and social standards. “The main thing is not to lose our bearings,” says the family patriarch Jose Arcadio Buendia as he leads the exodus.
Psychological and moral bearings are exactly what are lost as the history of the village of Macondo passes. Widespread incest, adultery, suicide, murderous rebellion and political repression are inevitable outgrowths in a society which is without bearings. One girl eats nothing but dirt. A boy is raised to become the pope but is never ordained a priest and is later killed in his bathtub by four teenage boys who have come to steal his gold.
Jose Arcadio’s goal was create a society where the unconscious reigns supreme; every desire is to be fulfilled. Eventually, the village collapses, not because of external conquest, but because its anarchy creates chaos and death.
The crazy world of One Hundred Years of Solitude can provide a framework for understanding Sunday’s Gospel. The Gospel begins with Jesus lecturing the Pharisees and scribes on their confusing the commandment of God with extrinsic practices such as the ritual washing of cups, pots and bronze kettles. These religious leaders uphold human traditions, but their hearts are far from God.
Do not trouble yourselves with these traditions but fight to overcome the evil intentions which come from the human heart, Jesus says. Fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride and folly all come “from within.”
The heart is what needs reform. The heart is not a general attitude toward God and the world. It is shaped by one, possibly more, overweening desires. Those ungodly desires which come from within may be unknown to others. Serial killers and mass murderers, for example, are skilled at keeping their perversions secret from even their closest associates. One does not know a person until their desires burst forth into action.
This can also be said of good intentions. When the emotions and the unconscious are restrained, when they are ordered by reason, then we can overcome internal chaos. We can live as happy a life as is available in this world if we employ our passions toward good ends.
But chaos is more and more the order of the day. It displays itself in suicide, relationship breakdowns, drug abuse, mental illness, alienation from work and a host of other phenomena which stem from a loss of hope and the loss of a sense of an integrated self. Such phenomena may be the result of chaotic family situations, the false hopes of advertising, poverty, wealth or political systems of domination. Perhaps it is all those diseases working together which has upset our social equilibrium.
We are not a society of bad people. But we are society where people are subject to numerous noxious social forces. We badly need a moral and spiritual framework which helps people make sense of their lives amidst the surrounding confusion.
Humans were created with a religious dimension, a dimension which should focus our hearts. Yet, our religious institutions have failed to respond to contemporary needs. We live in uncharted territory. The main thing is to regain our bearings.