Traditions of Men

Yesterday's gospel reading for Mass has one of my favorite passages from the Old Testament prophets. It is where Isaiah says that the people (of his day, firstly) are worshipping God "in vain". Jesus uses this prophecy to say that the Jews of His day were no better. They had chosen "the traditions of men" over the commandments of God.

Do we do the same thing today? No, we may not have formal "traditions" that we adhere to over and against the commandments of God, but that does not mean we have not sinned in the same way. When someone likes the "tradition" of hearing a certain hymn at a certain time of year, and they insist that it must be sung at Mass, then that person is choosing his "tradition of men" as a priority. When someone insists on doing a particular "ministry" in the Mass (extraordinary minister of Holy Communion; reader, etc.), even though the church has ruled that those ministries are only supposed to be temporary positions, he is also choosing his own personal "tradition" over the commandments of God.

Let us make sure about the choices we are making when we worship God, that they are not making our worship of God to become vain. Our worship is "vain" or useless if we are more concerned with what we want out of Mass than what God wants. We are doing a vain service to God when we care more about pleasing ourselves than about pleasing the God we are claiming to worship. This is not a small issue, and we each should look deeply into our hearts and ask ourselves how faithful we are in this.