Sixteenth Thursday of Ordinary Time

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.”

We are either open to God or closed to Him. We either see Him in the world around us or we deny He is there. We either hear His Good News proclaimed by the Church or we deafen ourselves to it by focusing our minds on worldly things. Our hearts are either ready to receive God in all things or willing to deny Him for our own selfish reasons. We either understand that we have much to learn from God and His Church or we decide that we know what is right and wrong like Adam and Eve. We either seek to be healed of our afflictions or we allow ourselves to be devoured by them. God gives us every chance to listen and understand His Divine Word, it us up to us to be open to seeing, hearing, and understanding it and then putting it into practice in our lives.

Are we blind and deaf to the parables that are constantly revealed to us in our own lives? Are our hearts and minds open to what God is trying to teach us? How can we receive God's Divine Word into our lives and live it out with all our strengths?

O Lord, bless our eyes, ears, minds, and hearts so they might be open to your teachings and truths.

Amen.