The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today present images of brides, cracked cisterns, light, and listening to parables to deepen our understanding of building our relationship with God.
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| Light to see Light |
In the reading from the Prophet Jeremiah, God pleads with Israel to repent.
* [2:1–3:5] These chapters may contain some of Jeremiah’s early preaching. He portrays Israel as the wife of the Lord, faithful only in the beginning, when she walked behind him (2:2–3, 5; 3:1). Consistent with the marriage metaphor, he describes her present unfaithfulness as adultery (2:20; 3:2–3); now she walks behind the Baals.1
Psalm 36 contrasts human wickedness and Divine goodness.
* [Psalm 36] A Psalm with elements of wisdom (Ps 36:2–5), the hymn (Ps 36:6–10), and the lament (Ps 36:11–13). The rule of sin over the wicked (Ps 36:2–5) is contrasted with the rule of divine love and mercy over God’s friends (Ps 36:6–10). The Psalm ends with a prayer that God’s guidance never cease (Ps 36:11–12).2
In the Gospel of Matthew we learn from Jesus the purpose of the Parables to help us understand with our heart and turn to Him.
* [13:13] Because ‘they look…or understand’: Matthew softens his Marcan source, which states that Jesus speaks in parables so that the crowds may not understand (Mk 4:12), and makes such speaking a punishment given because they have not accepted his previous clear teaching. However, his citation of Is 6:9–10 in Mt 13:14 supports the harsher Marcan view.3
Larry Gillick, S.J. comments that in today’s Gospel we hear the Sophomore-class of His disciples wanting to know why He speaks poetically in these parables. Why doesn’t he just come right out and say, that some are going to get it and some just might and some really will.
What is all this for us? There is something just under the surface in us which desires certainty, clarity and solidness. This is human and healthy. There is something deeper within us which longs for completion and not easy answers. Poems like parables touch that deeper place which desires searching, pondering and actually trust more than the boredom of finding solutions.
Do you want a clear explanation of human love? That would not walk with you very far and you would not ever know what love is. Love is the basis of the very existence of God Who cannot be figured out. Love and be loved and you will never be able to explain it, especially to Sophomores. Jesus never wanted to be explainable, but gracefully experienced.4
Don Schwager quotes “Ears that refuse to hear,” by Hilary of Poitiers (315-367 AD).
"Faith perceives the mysteries of the kingdom. A person will make progress in those things he has been immersed in and will abound with an increase in that progress. But in those things he has not been immersed in, even that which he has shall be taken away from him. In other words, he suffers the loss of the law from the loss of his faith. Lacking faith, the people of the law lost even the efficacy of the law. Therefore, gospel faith receives a perfect gift, because it enriches with new fruit those things that have been undertaken. But once it is rejected, even the help of one's former means of support is taken away. (excerpt from a commentary ON MATTHEW 13.2)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 13:10-17 invites us to look at all the people who met Jesus, who saw him do so much but still didn’t believe in him. Looking but not truly seeing and hearing but not truly understanding, they questioned the validity of his miracles (Matthew 13:13). They accused him of being in league with Satan. They were scandalized when he said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (John 6:54).
We have the Holy Spirit. He can help anyone come to know Jesus even better than the people who heard him in Galilee. People today may not be able to touch him, but they can receive him in the Eucharist. They may not hear him, but they have his living word in the Scriptures. And most important, they may not see him, but they have you standing right in front of them. Jesus has commissioned you and promised to be with you always. The witness of your life and the testimony of your words really can change people’s lives.6
Friar Jude Winkler notes that Jeremiah speaks of the relationship of God to the Israelites in the desert as that of bride and groom. The simple examples of the parables are to help us understand the mystery of Divine Love. Friar Jude reminds us that we are responsible for refusing to see and hear Jesus' message.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that, in the Gospel, Jesus says to Mary Magdalene “Do not cling to me” (John 20:17). He is saying “Don’t hold on to the past, what you think you need or deserve. We are all heading for something much bigger and much better, Mary.” This is the spiritual art of detachment, which is not taught much in the capitalistic worldview where clinging and possessing are not just the norm but even the goal. In her desire to cling to Jesus and his refusal to allow it, we see ourselves reflected as in a mirror. We are shown that eventually even the greatest things in our lives—even our loves—must be released and allowed to become something new. Otherwise we are trapped. Love has not yet made us free.
Great love is both very attached (“passionate”) and yet very detached at the same time. It is love but not addiction. The soul, the True Self or Whole Self, has everything, and so it does not require any particular thing or person. When we have all things in Christ, we do not have to protect any one thing. The True Self can love and let go. The separate, small self cannot do this. I am told the “do not cling to me” encounter between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is the most painted Easter scene. The artistic imagination knows that a seeming contradiction was playing out here: intense love and yet appropriate distance. The soul and the spirit tend to love and revel in paradoxes; they operate by resonance and reflection. Our smaller egoic selves want to resolve all paradoxes in a most glib way. We only have to look around at all the struggling relationships in our own lives to see that it’s true. When we love exclusively from our small selves, we operate in a way that is mechanical and instrumental, which we now sometimes call codependent. We return again and again to the patterns of interaction we know. This is not always bad, but it is surely limited. Great love—loving from our Whole Selves connected to the Source of all love—offers us so much more.7
The many facets of our relationship with God are best explored by our experience that cannot be captured in words.
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