THE VALUE OF WHAT WE HEAR AND SEE

THURSDAY, SIXTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Exo 19:1-2,9-11,16-20; Dan 3:52-56; Mt 13:10-17

What the Prophets Longed to Hear and See

The two readings before us today provide a comparison of how God constituted the children of Israel as His people in the Old Testament, a type of His Church, and how He constituted His new people, the Church of God. The passage describes the scene at Mount Sinai, where Yahweh gave them his Commandments. The children of Israel were slaves in Egypt and familiar with hard labour and strong language. God used physical sounds, terrifying events, loud voices, and strong languages to communicate his will to them. Because they grovel to things of the senses, God used sensible things and events to make an impression on them. “Now at daybreak on the third day there were peals of thunder on the mountain and lightning flashes, a dense cloud, and a loud trumpet blast, and inside the camp all the people trembled.” The Lord employed this means because only terrifying things or things appealing to the senses can move people who live enslaved by their senses. Thus, the Lord presented himself in a frightening form to instil fear in them to keep the Commandments of life. “Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the bottom of the mountain. The mountain of Sinai was entirely wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. Like smoke from a furnace, the smoke went up, and the whole mountain shook violently.”

Yahweh only used these sensible forms of communication to suit their manner of life. He used the language of slaves to communicate his presence because many of them were still slaves in their thinking and acting.  The language for the sons would make no sense to the slaves. The physical and sensible manifestations of the Lord were for the gradual training of those called to inherit the Law of grace. The Lord employed the language of Law to gradually train those he would spiritually form to inherit the reality of God as sons. The Law of Moses is, therefore, a spiritual barrier to keep out those who are physically minded from entering the spiritual kingdom of God; those who are moved only by what is sensibly given and not the spiritually discerned. The Sinai manifestation of God was to the spiritually minded the physical display of the all-knowing and all-powerful God, but to the physically minded, who regretted not dying at the hand of God in Egypt because of pans of meat and bread, it was a manifestation of a terrifying and demanding God. Every word of God is true and life-giving, but we must spiritually discern the content and not evaluate it physically alone. As the Lord taught in the parable of the sower, the word of God germinates and bears much fruit only in generous minds and hearts, who receive the words from God as from a loving and caring Father.

The explanation our Lord offered for speaking to the crowds in parables underscores this explanation. “The reason I talk to them in parables is that they look without seeing and listen without hearing or understanding.” It is not the will of God that we should misunderstand his word. The misunderstanding is due to a lack of good disposition to receive his divine will. We must receive God’s self-revelation with open mind, heart, and deep humility. He explains as follows, “The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are revealed to you, but they are not revealed to them. For anyone who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough; but from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” God communicates his word freely to all. In the incarnation of the Eternal Word of God, God revealed his will for our salvation in full and to all, without distinction. The Lord confirms that what we have received is what the prophets of old longed to receive. “But happy are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear! I tell you solemnly, many prophets and holy men longed to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.” There is no way of getting familiar with the rich and heavenly contents of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ without constant reading, meditation, and contemplation of the word of God. We ask for the grace to make these a constant practice.

Let us pray: Show us favour, O Lord, who are your servants and make us fervent in the practice of faith, hope and charity, so that we may be ever watchful in keeping your commands and following your will. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.