Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
When I was reading today's Gospel, it reminded me of my time at Purdue University. At the beginning of my collegiate career, I chose to join one of the music service fraternities on campus, which may have been the worst decision I made during college.
When joining a service fraternity you go through a candidacy period, in which the group of candidates must complete a service project to become an active member of the group. Unfortunately, our project fell through. However, the day we planned to complete the original project, we helped out the music department in another way. When the fraternity had their weekly meeting, we told the active members what we had done and afterwards, well ... they had a cow.
The active members argued for several hours on whether or not what we completed counted towards our service project. The active members throughout all the arguments continually brought up these familiar phrases: “This is not how we've done this past”, “When we did our service project…” and “The by-laws don't approve this replacement project”. The active members from that day remind me of the Pharisees in today’s Gospel. They were so concerned about how it used to be that they forgot that we still helped the music department. Just as Pharisees questioned Jesus about his disciples not washing their hands because it broke the tradition of the elders.
From that experience I learned that it can be healthy to apply the following question to traditions or rules that you follow. Is what I am doing breaking with spirit of the service? Does what I am doing still have meaning in my life? Am I just going through the motions because this is how it has always been done?
May we never disregard God's will and cling to human tradition.
- Anna Kristie
Young Adults