The queen of Sheba, having heard of Solomon’s fame, came to test him with subtle questions.
The reading then closes with the Queen saying to Solomon:
In his enduring love for Israel, the LORD has made you king to carry out judgment and justice.” Then she gave the king one hundred and twenty gold talents, a very large quantity of spices, and precious stones. Never again did anyone bring such an abundance of spices as the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.
Jesus speaks about this visit in a different Gospel from the one we read today during Mass:
At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here.Yes, Jesus is 'something greater than Solomon.' He is, as we recite every Sunday during the Creed:
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made.
When we have seen Him, we have seen the Father.
It is this Jesus who is speaking in todays Gospel reading:
He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) “But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within and they defile.”
Let us listen to Jesus, then, and avoid those actions that defile us; keeping the Commandments, practicing virtue, saying only the good things men need to hear.
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