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15th Sunday of the Year

A number of years ago I was doing a course in Margate with priests and religious all over the world. One of the things that we really looked at was the use of story and image in preaching and also what was described as the “Lost art of listening” It seems to me that in our modern era we have lost both these things. The reason is that we have become self absorbed and only looking at our own world rather than anyone else’s. We have become a self absorbed society. Our favourite word is “I.” We use it all the time “I don’t like that. It does not suit me. You made me angry” Some of these statements are so wrong. How can anyone make you angry apart from yourselves?
Because of this self absorption the words of the Gospel ring home as true. Let us listen again to what Jesus has to say:

“ For the heart of this nation has grown course, their ears are dull of hearing, and they have shut their eyes for fear they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and be converted and be healed by me”

There seems to be a need to get back to basics to practice hearing again. Practice being silent and really understanding what God is trying to say to us and get to know who they really are. Our minds and hearts are like what the sower is sowing. Sometimes because of our own issues with the Church or with the world we do not hear the voice of God and so nothing flourishes. And in fact because we have shut ourselves out we are frightened of what we might learn about ourselves and God. We put up defences like humour or being passive aggressive in order to safe guard ourselves. Or we get very enthusiastic about one thing or another and then the weeds like dementors in the Harry Potter movies suck all the life out of them and we lose hope. Then there are those times when we really hear the word of God and we get it and it dwells deep within our souls and it gives us life. And we grow deeper into Christ’s love. I suppose the thing is that this does not happen very much and so we need to hold on to these times of life and acknowledge the graces that have been given to us.
There is also a problem today with the passive nature of our own lives. Sometimes we do not hear because we are busy waiting for God. We have become a consumer society and that has also happened with our relationship with God. Because of the constraints of society, because of the business of our lives, because we have so many distractions we have become dull in hearing and listening to the word of God. This has meant that we have then tried to water the faith down to fit it in with our lives we have become supermarket Catholics.

But, there is no need to be frightened about the Church’s teaching: trust. There is no need to turn away. There is no need to run as far as we can from the truth. For we have one who shows us the truth, we have one who gives us life abundantly and so if we allow ourselves to be open we can be healed we just need to learn to have the ears to hear his word.   



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