Thursday, 07-27-23
PRI Reflections on Scripture | Thursday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time
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Gospel
Matthew 13:10-17

The disciples approached Jesus and said,
"Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?"
He said to them in reply,
"Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listenor understand.
Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:

You shall indeed hear but not understand,
you shall indeed look but never see.
Gross is the heart of this people,
they will hardly hear with their ears,
they have closed their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their hearts and be converted
and I heal them.

"But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

Reflection
It is important to understand who, in this gospel, Jesus is talking about. And it’s the Pharisees and the scribes. They were closed minded. They refused to look at who Jesus is. And what you see in Jesus’ words is that the men who had Jesus in their midst, they could see, they could hear, they could understand, to a certain extent, but much more than the others.

But what I want to say is that the most important thing in this story is that if you have Christ in you, which is the promise of redemption, you can see, and you can hear, and you can understand. It is not within human nature to be able to do that. We need the indwelling presence of Spirit, of Jesus, of God Himself, living in us, teaching us, showing us.

Closing Prayer
Father, we so often seek understanding with our minds, and we have to understand that we are dealing so much with the mystery that is beyond our comprehension. And so what we need always is surrendering our wills and our minds to the mystery of the understanding of the heart. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.