The dangerous leaven

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 6th week in Ordinary time

February 16, 2021: Genesis 6: 5-8, 7: 1-5, 10; Mark 8: 14-21

The Lord invites us, as God's people to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Another significant role the Lord assigns to us is to be the leaven of goodness; the yeast of the Reign. Jesus uses this image of the leaven - both in the positive sense of the leaven of the Reign, and in the negative sense of the leaven of the pharisees to be avoided.

Today, the Lord warns us of a danger that we become a leaven of insincerity, compromises, mediocrity and hypocrisy. Even though we may not outwardly choose to be blatantly evil, we may live a life of double or multiple standards, a life of total discrepancy; that life would not only be unfit for Reign, it would be dangerously against the Reign.

Getting into the ark of the Lord, that is the Reign of God, is not a simple matter that happens automatically. It is a series of deliberate choices to be made, on a daily basis. It does not happen by decisions others have made on our behalf (something like the parents deciding to baptise the kids), not does it happen by mere enrollment on a roll of members in a society or a community! It is a personal choice and an absolute way of life.

We are at the threshold of a holy season... the holy season of lent which begins tomorrow. What a time to impress on our minds this concrete message!