Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time (July 27, 2017): What makes us sluggish to hear the truth?.

Exodus 19:1-2, 9-11, 16-20b
Daniel 3:52-56
Matthew 13:10-17
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072717.cfm

USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/17_07_27.mp3

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.

The disciples approached Jesus and said,
“Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?”
He said to them in reply,
“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.
Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:

You shall indeed hear but not understand,
you 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.

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

What’s different between those who understand what the Church teaches and those who don’t? Or what God says in the scriptures? Or what Jesus meant by the parables? That’s what the disciples wanted to find out in today’s Gospel reading. The answer lies in the prophecy from Isaiah 6:9-10 that Jesus quoted: People’s hearts are gross.

In the original Greek (the language in which Matthew wrote), the word “gross” meant thickening or fattening. Jesus was talking about what happens when we get filled up on the world’s food. Because we want to eat whatever makes us feel good, we gorge ourselves from the world’s cafeteria, gulping down large portions of Make Up Your Own Rules moral relativism or self-promoting agendas or “New Age” spirituality and anything else that’s not on God’s banquet table. On this diet, our hearts get “sluggish” and we miss the truth even when it’s handed to us on a silver serving platter.

Why do children who were raised with strong faith leave the Church when they become adults? What makes a good Christian become sluggish? Why do any of us get lazy about discovering and relinquishing the untruths we believe? Usually, it’s because of fear. We’re afraid we won’t like what we’ll hear — as if God (directly or through the Church) will tell us something that will harm us!

For example, a Christian woman who had an abortion many years ago has learned to bury the nagging thought that her fetus was a real child. Fearing that she would be unable to live with the realization that she had actually killed someone, especially a child she could have loved, she shuts down all thoughts about it. In this condition, there is no way she can hear Jesus invite her to the healing and forgiveness for which her soul secretly longs. She thinks she has peace, but it’s nothing more than denial, which is peace only at the surface. This self-imposed false peace, if she manages to maintain it for the rest of her life, will be stripped away at the moment of her death when the child she aborted comes with Jesus to welcome her into the afterlife.

(Side note: Please see our ministry called Families of Aborted Children Praying Together at: http://gnm.org/facpt)

It’s only by focusing on the reality of God’s love for us, which is unending and unconditional and full of mercy, that we can risk hearing what our fears are telling us to ignore. Fear says that God does not care for us as much as we need him to. Fear says that God wants to make our lives miserable. Fear says that what we did wrong is bigger than God’s mercy.

To silence our fears, we have to remind ourselves that fear never speaks the truth. Fear is a liar: False Evidence Appearing Real. Only God fully speaks the truth, and when we remember that with God nothing is impossible, we can bear to hear the truth. When we remember that God wants to make good come out of everything, we can dare to face the truths that we fear the most.

If you know people who are sluggish to accept a truth that you’re trying to share with them, concentrate first on helping them learn how very much God loves them and that he offers forgiveness and healing. Show them the wonderfulness of this truth by loving them the same way. Then it will become easier to help them realize that their inner turmoil can be remedied.

Thank You Lord, because You’ve opened my eyes and ears to recognize You and to listen to Your voice. I praise You for responding like this, to my thirst of the living water of Your love. Amen.