9 February 2027 · Latin Rite
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“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27
The creation account reaches its summit. After the fish and birds and animals, God says something new: “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” Only of the human being is this said. “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Every person, rich or poor, born or unborn, healthy or disabled, carries the image of God. Man and woman together reflect him, and they receive a task: to fill the earth and care for it as God's stewards. Then comes the seventh day: God “rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.” Our work finds its meaning in rest and worship.
The Psalm marvels: “what are human beings that you are mindful of them…? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.” But the Gospel shows how that glory can be emptied. The Pharisees criticise the disciples for eating without the ritual washing of hands. Jesus answers with Isaiah: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” They had let human customs smother God's command, even using the vow of “Corban” to avoid supporting their parents. “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” On the eve of Lent the question is pointed: is my religion a matter of the lips, or of the heart that bears God's image?
Theme: “Their hearts are far from me.”
Made in God's image, called to worship with the heart, on the eve of Lent.
“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27
“For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” Ephesians 2:10
Apply: Show special respect this week to someone the world overlooks.
“So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.” Genesis 2:3
“So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God;” Hebrews 4:9
Apply: Keep next Sunday free for Mass, family and rest.
“Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” Exodus 20:12
“He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;” Mark 7:6
Apply: Do one concrete act of care for your parents or elders this week.
We bear God's image; let our worship come from the heart.
Lent begins tomorrow: return to God with the heart.
Take-home resolution: Write down your Lenten resolutions of prayer, fasting and almsgiving tonight.
Dear friends, today the creation story reaches its summit: God said, let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness (Genesis 1:26). Only of us is this said.
So God created humankind in his image, male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27). Every person bears God's image: the child in the womb, the poor man at the gate, the old woman in her bed. Then God rested on the seventh day and blessed it. Our work finds its meaning in rest and worship.
In the Gospel Jesus quotes Isaiah: this people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me (Mark 7:6). Some had used religious customs to avoid caring for their own parents. Jesus says: you abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition (Mark 7:8).
Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. Lent asks one thing: give God your heart, not only your lips. Let us choose tonight how we will pray, fast and give, and let God restore his image in us. Amen.
Children, God made you like himself! That is why every person is special. This Lent, let us love Jesus with our hearts, not only with our words.
God our Creator, you made us in your image and crowned us with glory and honour. Keep us from honouring you with our lips while our hearts are far from you. As Lent begins, turn our hearts back to you and teach us to see your image in every person. Amen.
Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, and today's readings prepare the ground. Genesis tells us who we are: creatures in God's image, given the world to care for, and invited into his rest. Psalm 8 is astonished at this: “what are human beings that you are mindful of them?” Mark then shows how that dignity can be forgotten, when an honest religious practice is used to avoid honouring one's own father and mother. Lent will ask the same thing of us: is our worship a matter of the lips or of the heart?
Setting.
The account begun on Monday reaches its summit. Days five and six fill the waters, the air and the land, and the sentence “Let us make” marks something new. The reading ends halfway through 2:4, where this first account of creation closes; the second account, with the garden, begins there. The two were placed side by side, and they answer different questions.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness;” (1:26)
Why “us”? The Hebrew leaves this open. Many scholars think of God speaking with his heavenly court or of a solemn plural of deliberation. Many Fathers, reading with the whole Bible in hand, heard a first hint of the Trinity. The one is a reading of the Hebrew, the other a reading in the light of Christ.
“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (1:27)
This is the root of Christian teaching on the dignity of every person: not earned, not lost by sickness, age or poverty.
“God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” (1:31)
After six times “good”, now “very good”, said of the whole, with humankind in it.
“And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” (2:2)
St Augustine ends his Confessions on this verse: the seventh day has no evening, because God himself will be our rest (in substance).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that the human being alone in creation is able to know and love his Creator, and is the only creature God has willed for its own sake (CCC 356, quoting Gaudium et Spes 24). Being in God's image means being a person, not merely something (CCC 357). Man and woman are stewards of the earth (CCC 373); Pope Francis insists that being made in God's image gives no justification for absolute domination over other creatures (Laudato Si' 67). Christ himself is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and in him that image, damaged by sin, is restored (CCC 1701). The Sabbath rest finds its fulfilment for Christians in Sunday (CCC 2175).
Setting.
Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem question Jesus about the disciples' eating habits. The Pharisees were a respected lay movement who wanted holiness to reach everyday life, and they applied to ordinary meals some of the washing rules that the Law set for priests. Their concern was a serious one. Mark explains these customs for Gentile readers who do not know them (vv. 3–4); his phrase “all the Jews” is a broad description, and scholars discuss how widely these customs were kept in that period.
This is an argument inside the Jewish family, about how best to honour God. Jesus' sharp words are for the behaviour he describes, in the people he is addressing. They are no judgement on the Jewish people (Nostra Aetate 4; CCC 575 notes that his relations with the Pharisees were not only polemical).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;” (7:6)
Jesus takes these words from the prophet Isaiah, who spoke them to his own people. The prophets' language of self-criticism is one of the great gifts of Israel to the world.
“You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”” (7:8)
This sentence is the heart of the reading.
“then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother,” (7:12)
The argument is very practical. An act that looks like piety towards God is being used to escape from the fourth commandment. Elderly parents go hungry, and the conscience stays quiet.
“thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on.” (7:13)
“Making void” is a legal word: to cancel, to annul. The word of God can be cancelled by people who are very devout.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that Jesus had to confront certain human traditions of the Pharisees that were making void the word of God (CCC 581). It also distinguishes the apostolic Tradition, which comes from Christ through the apostles, from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, which the Church can keep, change or drop under her Magisterium (CCC 83). So this passage is no argument against Tradition as such. Scripture and Tradition flow from the same divine source (Dei Verbum 9). Grown children's duty of material and moral support to aged parents remains a serious duty (CCC 2218).
Does this Gospel mean that Catholic traditions are only human rules?
No. Jesus does not reject tradition but a practice that sets aside God's command. The Church's apostolic Tradition hands on what Christ gave (CCC 78, 83). But the warning touches us too: a devotion, a custom or a parish way of doing things can be kept with great care while the poor or our own parents are forgotten. The test is the one Jesus gives: does it bring the heart near to God?