“Care for orphans and widows in their affliction and… keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:27)
St. James illustrates for us two paths of spirituality that we must keep in balance. On the one hand we should involve ourselves in our world to help our brothers and sisters in need, whether that need is physical, emotional, or spiritual. On the other hand we are to keep ourselves unstained by the world, or as one Act of Contrition puts it, we must avoid the near occasion of sin.
It is this avoidance of sin, of keeping ourselves unstained by the world that is the more difficult precept. We run the risk of cutting ourselves off from the world and avoiding those people who most need our help.
The Pharisees practiced this doctrine of avoidance, taking it to an extreme. They cared less about eating with unwashed hands than they did about scrupulously following the laws that separated them from the gentiles whom they saw as a source of corruption. But Jesus swept away this hypocrisy. “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person.” (Mark 7:15)
Are there people we avoid because we see them as sinners and do not want to be associated with them? How then can we claim to be followers of Christ, “friend of tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 11:9) Our challenge is to reach out to those in need. We need not fear being defiled unless we already carry that defilement in our hearts.
Pax Vobiscum
22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time