Jesus was speaking in parables to the crowd in today’s gospel when he said:
“This is why I speak to them in parables, because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.”
These words were in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy:
“You shall indeed hear but not understand, you shall indeed look but never see.”
The first reading for Mass says to:
“Be amazed at this, O heavens, and shudder with sheer horror, says the Lord. Two evils have my people done: they have forsaken me, the source of living waters; They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water.”
It is amazing how many things we go through the motions with every day. Have you ever caught yourself driving the same road you usually drive on when you go to work, but it isn’t a work day? Or getting on the wrong subway or bus because your mind is so trained to the patterns of every day life that you go through the motions without ever really thinking about them? We are often on autopilot when we get ready for work each day too.
When it comes to your job, have you ever seen a process, or form, or manner of doing business that is so completely out of date that it is no longer effective? Sometimes a form is copied for 30 years, to the point that it is unreadable, and yet, people keep trying to use the same old form. No one catches the fact that the form needs to be updated, although hundreds of people might have been using it for many years, and the information on the form could be outdated or incorrect. No one realizes it, because we go through the motions of life sometimes, without ever really thinking about what we are actually doing.
Have you ever noticed that about websites too? There are a lot of words that are misspelled on websites, even in prominent publishing companies or universities that no one catches. Highly educated people, but they don’t catch the most basic writing errors, like spelling a common word correctly. And this isn’t just the case with people selling vitamins either, it has even occurred on the front page of universities’ websites. Someone with a grade school education may be the one to actually catch the error though.
Forms at work are like that too. How many forms have you filled out in life that it seems like no one actually tried recording the information in it, that was asked for? You end up writing in the margins and between lines and all kinds of places, just trying to record the basic information they asked for. No one ever checked to see if the form was actually usable for the average person or not.
Our brains are so conditioned to things, that we sometimes never actually think things through, even in our faith lives. There are many people with masters or even doctorate degrees in theology that never fed the hungry, or visited the sick, welcomed the stranger, or gave drink to the thirsty for an example.
The devil has a way of distracting even the best of us. Bait and distraction are some of his best weapons against us. And we are distracted so easily. The pretty pictures on a website for an example, can distract us to the point we don’t actually understand what the pictures were about, if we don’t take the time to read and reflect on the article too.
God says in the first reading:
“I remember the devotion of your youth, how you loved me as a bride, following me in the desert, in a land unsown.”
And that:
“They have forsaken me, the source of living waters; They have dug cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water.”
It is possible to learn all about cisterns, the outer trappings of our faith, without ever really understanding the basics, the essence of how we are supposed to live out the Catholic faith in our lives. We get so caught up in the present moment, in our own little world sometimes and it is difficult to see anything outside of our own spear of knowledge, experience or awareness. We are all guilty of this, (no one is pointing any fingers) but our minds, not our hearts, are often in what we do. However, we will be judged by our hearts and our actions, not just by what we know.
That is why Jesus said,
“You shall indeed hear but not understand, you shall indeed look but never see.”
So many times in life, we see what we want to see, but not the truth, because the truth is difficult to face.
“Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and be converted and I heal them.”
Jesus Christ will not judge us on the intellectual knowledge that we know, but what we did with it. The challenge for all of us today, is to ask ourselves what have we actually done with our knowledge of Jesus Christ? Have we actually done what he said for us to do, or are we too busy thinking about it? This isn’t meant to be a guilt trip, only some food for thought today.
Daily Mass Readings:
Jeremiah 2: 1-3, 7-8, 12-13 / Psalm 36 / Matthew 13: 10-17
