He who has ears, let him hear.”

By God’s grace you have spiritual hearing and understanding, listen up!
The good news of the Gospel is God’s gift to give – it’s up to each individual whether or not they’re going to accept it.

St. Lawrence of Brindisi, priest & doctor

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊ 

Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13

 A  word  of  Yahweh 

Came  to  me,    “Go  and  shout  this  in the hea­ring of     Jerusalem. This is Yahweh’s word: I remember your kindness as a youth, the love of your bridal days, when you followed me in the wilderness, through a land not sown.

  Israel was holy to Yahweh, the first-fruits of his harvest.

All who ate of it had to pay and misfortune fell on them –  it is Yahweh who speaks.  I brought you to a fertile land to eat of the choicest fruit. As soon as you came you defiled my land and dishonored my heritage!   The priests did not ask, ‘Where is Yahweh?’ The masters of my teaching did not know me; the pastors of my people betrayed me; the prophets followed worthless idols and spoke in the name of Baal.

  Be aghast at that, O heavens! Shudder, be utterly appalled – it is Yahweh who speaks –  for my people have done two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, to dig for themselves leaking cisterns that hold no water!

 

Ps 36:6-7ab, 8-9, 10-11

With you is the fountain of life, O Lord.

 

    ＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊ 

Matthew 13:10-17

Then his disciples came to him with the question, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”

Jesus answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but not to these people.   For the one who has, will be given more and he will have in abundance. But the one who does not have will be deprived of even what he has.  That is why I speak to them in parables, because they look and do not see; they hear, but they do not listen or understand.

 In them the words of the prophet Isaiah are fulfilled: Much as you hear, you do not understand; much as you see, you do not perceive.

 For the heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears hardly hear and their eyes dare not see. If they were to see with their eyes, hear with their ears and understand with their heart, they would turn back and I would heal them.

But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears, because they hear.

For I tell you that many prophets and upright people would have longed to see the things you see, but they did not, and to hear the things you hear, but they did not hear it.

 

 Gospel Reflection：

Use Them Lose Them

Spiritual faculties, like our physical faculties, need to be regularly exercised so as to keep them healthy and functional. If not, whatever little health and functionality they have will also disappear. The spiritual faculty of “listening” must be exercised regularly with our perceptive listening to the Word of God – as Mother Mary listened, cherished, and contemplated her son’s words in her heart.

 

Our sacramental sensibilities must be exercised by regular sacramental practice, especially Eucharistic practice. A family that spends some 20minutes every day to gather together to read the Word, share faith, and listen to God’s workings in one another’s life that day will develop far deeper spiritual sensibilities.

 

Such habits of the heart provide us with a “third eye”, a “third” eye”,a deeper understanding to the mysteries of faith in our lives. Then we will not be like those unfortunate ones who hear but do not understand, see but do not perceive.