EYES TO SEE, EARS TO HEAR AND HEARTS TO UNDERSTAND

In today’s Gospel, Mt 13: 10-17, Matthew quotes Isaiah’s prophecy that is being fulfilled in the midst of the people whose lives He touches during his three-year public  ministry:  [They] shall indeed hear but not understand,…[they] shall indeed look but never see.  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 comes into the world of today and speaks that same message. He wants us to hear with our ears, see with our eyes, and understand with our hearts and be converted and be healed by Him. Do I accept God’s gift or do I, as we read in today’s first reading, Jeremiah 2: 1-3, 7-8, 12-13, evoke God’s outcry: “Be amazed…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; [t]hey have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water,” that is, they look to no-gods for  “food” and  “drink” that will perish, consuming more and more material things, building “empires” that will be reduced to rubble, trampling on the poor of this world, crushing the vulnerable, committing violence against the innocent, bringing upon themselves the judgment of God: This is a “wicked and adulterous generation” (Mt. 16:4), prostituting  themselves on false gods.

Lord, I pray that more and more people, every day,  will turn to You,  “the source of living waters,” to you, Jesus, in the Eucharist, the Scriptures, the sacraments.  May we come to know in our hearts, see with our eyes, and hear with our ears that You alone can save us, You alone are sanctifying us, You alone quench our thirst and feed our hungers for eternal life, for peace, for love and forgiveness, for wholeness and healing. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.