Homily: July 21, 2023, Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Mercy Not sacrifice).

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 "If you knew what this meant, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice’, you would not have condemned these innocent men." 

Jesus is quoting the words God had spoken through the prophet Hosea in the past. He knows that the Pharisees were familiar with the phrase and background but obviously they did not seem to fully understand what it meant.

Now, do we know what it means?

The root word of mercy is "misericordia," which means a compassionate heart. It is the heart that matters, not the externals.

In the first reading, we see God instructing Moses in detail how each Israelite family should offer a lamb and the whole community would sacrifice all the offerings together, share out the roasted meat and apply the lamb’s blood on door posts for the Lord to pass over, destroying only the Egyptians, not the Israelites.

The Israelites were to celebrate this festival yearly through all generations as a remembrance of God’s saving grace and liberation of the Israelites from slavery.

By Jesus’ time, the Passover festival had become an elaborate ritual focused on the sacrifice of lambs in the temple. According to Jewish historian Josephus, at least 250,000 animals were slaughtered at each festival. That is why the Temple in Jerusalem had a huge drainage system to carry away the blood from these slaughters.

The external rituals were carried out solemnly, but the spirit of celebrating God’s mercy was lost. Liberation became burden. Mercy was replaced by mercenary. The Jewish leaders had become the new slave masters of the people.

Does God really need our sacrifices? Does God want our rituals?

All those sacrifices add nothing to God. All the external rituals mean nothing to God, if there is no love, no mercy, no compassion. When religious practices overemphasize the external aspects, the spirit is lost.

"I desire mercy, not sacrifice".

When we celebrate the feasts and festivals, God wants us to remember His love, protection and providence all through history into eternity.

When we give our offerings and make our sacrifices, God wants us to recall His blessings given freely and His Son’s life sacrificed willingly for our freedom.

When we encounter a fellow human in sin, in need and suffering, God wants us to realize that because we have been shown mercy, we must let the same mercy flow through us.

When we come before God daily, let us not tell Him how much we have sacrificed for Him, but ask for the grace to be merciful to others, as He has been to us. This is what God desires. Amen.


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