16TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Sts. Joachim & Anne,
Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Psalter: Week 4 / (White)
Ps 36:6-7ab, 8-9, 10-11
With you is the fountain of life, O Lord.
1st Reading: Jer 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13
A word of Yahweh came to me, “Go and shout this in the hearing of Jerusalem. This is Yahweh’s word: I remember your kindness as a youth, the love of your bridal days, when you followed me in the wilderness, through a land not sown. Israel was holy to Yahweh, the first fruits of his harvest. All who ate of it had to pay and misfortune fell on them — it is Yahweh who speaks.
I brought you to a fertile land to eat of the choicest fruit. As soon as you came you defiled my land and dishonored my heritage! The priests did not ask, ‘Where is Yahweh?’ The masters of my teaching did not know me; the pastors of my people betrayed me; the prophets followed worthless idols and spoke in the name of Baal.
Be aghast at that, O heavens! Shudder, be utterly appalled — it is Yahweh who speaks — for my people have done two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, to dig for themselves leaking cisterns that hold no water!
Gospel: Mt 13:10-17
Then his disciples came to him and said, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”
Jesus answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but not to these people. For the one who has will be given more; and he will have in abundance. But the one who does not have will be deprived of even what he has. That is why I speak to them in parables; because they look and do not see; they hear but they do not listen or understand.
In them, the words of the prophet Isaiah are fulfilled: However much you hear, you do not understand; however much you see, you do not perceive.
For the heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears hardly hear and their eyes dare not see. If they were to see with their eyes, hear with their ears and understand with their heart, they would turn back, and I would heal them.
But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.
For I tell you, many prophets and righteous people have longed to see the things you see, but they did not see them; and to hear the things you hear, but they did not hear them.
Reflections
they look and do not see; they hear but they do not listen or understand
Jesus proclaims, “However much you hear, you do not understand; however much you see, you do not perceive.”
Stephen Hawking, acclaimed physicist, declared, "Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation." He has become an avowed atheist claiming that the human mind has the capacity to unravel all the secrets of the universe.
Religion and science need not be antithetical. The more one discovers through science the secrets of the universe, the deeper one’s sense of awe and faith in God can grow.
Daily Reflection 2018
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Biblical Texts are taken from Christian Community Bible, Catholic Pastoral Edition (57th Edition) The New English Translation for the ROMAN MISSAL
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