We do not listen or understand

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today address the willingness of those who are aware of the opportunity to be more intimately involved in a relationship with the Divine yet seem to pass it by. God advises Moses in the book of Exodus that ‘I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.’ The spectacle described should have shaken the most complacent into alertness in sight and hearing. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus cites Isaiah as one who found that the desire of the chosen people to hear and see was not stronger in the time of this prophet. Through this reference Jesus is pointing to the need to hear with the heart and see with new eyes. Those who are present with Jesus, as the original disciples and now have experience of the listening with intent to act and obey and seeing with the mystical eyes of the Body of Christ. The stories of the parables attraction attention, like the spectacle in Exodus. The disciple who works at hearing and seeing is brought to praise as exclaimed in the canticle from the Hebrew Testament from today’s lectionary. (Daniel 3:52, 53, 54, 55, 56). This thanksgiving for revealed truth is a sign that our senses are transcending our stiff necked stubbornness to be in charge.