It isn’t a problem we have today. The idea that cleanliness…holiness.. is impacted by what we eat or consume.
What we eat has no bearing on who we are spiritually or at our core as children of God.
It is what we allow to go forth from us that can defile and reduce to dust what was meant to be a tabernacle of the Holy Spirit. For if we live according to the world and neglect to keep the truth and love of Christ in our heart the evil one can take residence inside us. Our inclination to sin can have free rein and from inside us will come that which damages us and others around us.
Our problem today is not that things outside us make us unsuitable to host the Spirit of the Lord but things that we say and do remove us from the presence of the Holy Spirit and his graces.
Most people don’t see it because it begins with the smallest of lies. Excuses and what is called white lies to not offend others. With any dishonest word we drag our soul down until it is bent over and crawling in the dirt. And it brings down those around us. Everything we say and do affects all of us.
The Pharisees distanced themselves from those who ate with unclean hands but what is really true is that the one who sins and speaks lies or whose actions abandon the teachings of Christ distance themselves from others and from God.
Today we are called to choose God to be with us and remove anything that gets in our way of a relationship with him. Our hearts should be in prayer always. Our hearts grateful and thankful always. And our lips and hands doing only the will of the Father as Jesus taught us.
Deacon Tony Pynes 
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