GATHERING WITH JESUS CHRIST


THURSDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT   

Jer 7:23-28; Ps 95:1-2,6-9; Lk 11:14-23

Scattering by lack of Attention

To believe in God is to desire to know Him and His divine will for us. Our profession of faith in God and in Jesus Christ does not align with our lack of attention to the Word of God. We cannot claim to profess faith in God and at the same time show no interest in knowing God’s will for us. By our rational nature, which God endowed us with at creation, we understand that we are structured to listen attentively to creation and to God. This is because everything around us and within us is well-structured and ordered for various purposes. So, to live in such a well-structured universe, man needs to pay close attention to creatures all around him to understand and follow the wisdom of the Creator. This is even more important in view of our role as stewards in the universe of creation, as God assigned us. Understood thus, we see that attentiveness ought to be our natural virtue. When we fail to pay attention and learn from the order established by God, we disrupt the natural structure in and about us. The results and cost of these disruptions we know by experience to be very painful and costly. Hence, it is a natural religious act to be open and attentive to our reality and environment daily, for God speaks to us through these natural things and events of our day.

We live irreligiously when we are self-opinionated, unobservant, and inattentive to the divinely established order around and within us. Because the wisdom of God orders all things to their proper ends, not to pay attention to these orderings of things is to scatter what God has ordered. The Lord accuses the people of Israel of disobedience and deafness to his words. “These were my orders: Listen to my voice, then I will be your God, and you shall be my people. Follow right to the end, the way that I mark out for you, and you will prosper. But they did not listen, they did not pay attention; they followed the dictates of their own evil hearts, refused to face me, and turned their backs on me.” These words, addressed to the people of Israel, called to be the people of God, also speak to us who trod our own chosen paths and not the path God defined for us. Obedience to the word of God is the greatest act of worship we offer to God; thus, the scripture says that obedience is better than sacrifice. Every sin is a disobedience to the word of God and traceable to a lack of attention. ”But they have not listened to me, have not paid attention; they have grown stubborn and behaved worse than their ancestors.”

If every sin is a disobedience to God’s will, lack of attention to God’s voice is courtship with evil spirits. Our deafness to God’s words is a result of the hijacking of our attention by evil spirits. The Son of Man, who is obedient to the Father, came to call us back to communion with the Father. He is the Word that heals our deafness and restores the disciple’s ear to us. In the Gospel, Jesus cast out a deaf and dumb demon from a man, as a symbol of our deafness to the word of God. “Jesus was casting out a devil, and it was dumb; but when the devil had gone out, the dumb man spoke, and the people were amazed.” The healing is a demonstration of his power and authority to restore us to divine communion. Yet, some still refused to pay attention to the divine invitation to communion and disparaged the work Jesus did. “But some of them said, ‘It is through Beelzebul, the prince of devils, that he casts out devils.’ Others asked him, as a test, for a sign from heaven.” God speaks to us daily through our realities and events of our lives; yet we ask for signs and wonders in order to believe that He is with us. We pray for grace to be more attentive to God’s presence and words in our lives, so as not to scatter what he gathers. “He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters.” To listen to God is to eat our daily heavenly bread that nourishes our spirits.

Let us pray: We implore your majesty most humbly, O Lord, that, as the feast of our salvation draws ever closer, so we may press forward all the more eagerly towards the worthy celebration of the Paschal Mystery. 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.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The offsprings of the Old man and the New Man

Image
Monday, fifth week of lent/2024 Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP Offsprings of Old man and New Man To be able to live the new life within the new Covenant in Jesus Christ, the old life must come to an end. The distinctive difference between the old man and the new man is the focus of desires. The old man and all who live by him have their desires focussed on the satisfaction of self. On the other hand, the new man and those living by him desires only to fulfil God's holy will. Thus, the old man and his offspring obey the law of sin and death. Living for self alone breeds sins, and sin causes death. So, the old man and all living by him are dead and harbingers of death to others. They are adept at manipulating the Law of God to perpetuate their interest and selfish desires. An example of this skill is the treatment the two old judges of Israel in Babylon meted out to Susanna, wife of Joachim, employing the Law of Moses as given in the first reading. “Two elderly men had ...
Read more

WE CANNOT ENTER INTO HEAVEN WITHOUT FAITH

Image
OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP  Isa 7:1-9; Ps 48:2-8; Mt 11:20-24 If you do not stand by Me, you will not stand at all The Lord Jesus Christ takes up the issue of rejecting or ignoring the Gospel message when it comes to us in the gospel reading today. The word of God contains all the blessings of heaven which God had given us in Christ before the beginning of the world. Hence, a rejection or refusal to accept or listen to the Gospel message is a rejection of all the heavenly blessings we have received in Jesus Christ. These divine blessings have import for our lives here on earth. While still dwelling here on earth, those who believe in the word of God already possess the heavenly inheritance God will fully manifest to us when we exit this mortal tent. By faith, we enter into the eternal kingdom and the promised inheritance. The importance of faith for our reception of the heavenly blessings here on earth is illustrated in the first reading...
Read more

BECOMING A DEPENDABLE FRIEND

Image
FRIDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 6:5-17; Ps 119:12,16,18,27,34-35; Mk 10:1-12 Making and being a Good Friend The usefulness of a faithful friend is the subject discussed in the passage of Sirach we are considering. From the qualities that make a good friend, we understand that faithfulness depends on the perfection we attain in the formative school of wisdom. The first lesson we learn in nature is faithfulness. The quality of faithfulness is so closely aligned with nature that we consider nature and faithfulness synonyms. The faithfulness of nature, and subsequently of wisdom, is hinted at when we read that wisdom stands at her post/gate daily to beckon the passers-by to turn in and partake of her table. Everything that God made participates in this faithfulness of wisdom in the sense that each remains faithful to his will without failing or leading our minds astray. First, Sirach admonishes us on friendliness to people in general: “A kindly turn of speech multiplies a ...
Read more