THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

Man has a spirit and a body that are equally important. But having a spirit sets man apart from all other creation. Everything else has a body, but Adam received an infused knowledge of God and self consciousness that can make us distinguish one thing from the other and transforms it to experience. God created the garden with the tree of good and evil. Man is a person and is subject to God but we are invited to experience a relationship with God unlike any other beings. Man has the glory of being on top of creation. We are called to respond to this privilege in order to participate with God and enjoy being good, submissive, obedient, humble and all other virtues. It is just sad that this is something that sometimes we all don’t do. We still suffer from the weakness of original sin. As in Romans 7:19, For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. We have been given the tree to make a choice to do right or wrong. That is theoretical and practical as we experience this personal awareness of this tree. This establishes what man should be but what we experience in life now is not characterized with a life of good. We have the freedom of choice from within through our self consciousness and self determination that has a will through intelligence. This allow us to demonstrate that man alone being on top among all other creation possess these qualities in the entire world to dominate others and makes us able to be in relationship with God. In sin we lose grace and break this relationship which is manifested as earth resists our possessive domination when we try to use and abuse creation in contrary to the Creator’s will. This we have seen in various natural calamities. The Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts where our will is formed in grace with loving obedience to God and form actions that show integrity. Although this should be the case we sometimes do not reflect it but act in rebellion and contrary to how God created the universe. In order for us to realize what we’re created to be we have been permitted by God to form our knowledge and experiences to manipulate our feelings. Let us fervently hope and pray that what comes out of us is His word, His love and not our own so as to be rather than just to seem to be, a friend of God. Amen. Hallelujah!

Genesis 2:4-9, 15-17
...The LORD God gave man this order: “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden 17 except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.”


Nothing or no one else can make or break us, only God gives and takes, this is something we have to realize, first and foremost. Everything is by the grace of God. Thus we should always give thanks and praise to God as we say the psalm today. Amen. Hallelujah!

Psalm 104:1-2, 27-28, 29-30
R: O bless the Lord, my soul!
...All creatures look to you to give them food in due time. 28 When you give it to them, they gather it; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. (R) 29 If you take away their breath, they perish and return to their dust. 30 When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.

We ought to be very careful in the conduct of our affairs. We may think that we are good enough Christians and not missing on the obligations we are all expected to fulfill. Today's gospel gives us a specific account of the things we must avoid doing. These are things that stain our soul. If we are don't watch it we may be going through life without realizing what we've made of our souls. We may be looking all good on the outside but full of filth in the inside. When we leave earth we don't bring our bodies with us. We leave them behind what we bring with us is our soul. Let us make sure we render it clean all the time so that when the time comes we can finally inherit the gift of eternal life. As in Rev. 7:14, "These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Amen. Hallelujah!



Mark 7:14-23
14 Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. 15 Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” ...“But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles. 21 From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. 23 All these evils come from within and they defile.”