Commenting on yesterday's Gospel (Mk 7), St Bede the Venerable:
For taking the spiritual words of the prophets in a carnal sense, they observed, by washing the body alone, commandments which concerned the chastening of the heart and deeds, saying: "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean" (Is 1:16) and again, "Purify yourselves, you who bear the vessels of the Lord."
It is therefore a superstitious human tradition, that men who are clean already, should wash oftener because they eat bread, and that they should not eat on returning from the market without washing.
But is is necessary for those who desire to partake of the bread which comes down from heaven, often to cleanse their evil deeds by alms, by tears, and the other fruits of righteousness.
It is also necessary for a man to wash thoroughly away the pollutions which he has contracted from the cares of temporal business, by being afterwards intent on good thoughts and works.
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