Hearing and Listening

Homily for Friday of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time

The Letter to the Hebrews includes some very strong words today. The sacred writer contends that our ancestors heard the Word of God but that it did not profit them. Why? Well it seems that although they heard the Word of God, they did not listen. Hearing and listening are two different skills.

It is probably true that none of us will ever completely understand what God tells us in the Scriptures. I think this is particularly true of a difficult book of the Scriptures like the Letter to the Hebrews. We must hear the Scriptures over and over again, prayerfully considering what God is saying to us. The Word of God is sometimes referred to as a two-edged sword. (Tomorrow we will hear those words in the first reading.) Sometimes the Scriptures comfort us. Sometimes they challenge us. When we feel challenged, we have found our “growing edge,” a place where we need to listen with greater attention. Only when we listen in this fashion will we come to the comfort or the “rest” of which the sacred author speaks today.

In the Book of Genesis, we are told that God rested on the seventh day. We are further told that we are to do the same. We are meant to enter into God’s rest at least once a week.

We live at a time of unrest. At such times, it is so important that we hear the Word of God and really listen to what God is saying. Even the story of the paralytic in today’s Gospel can offer a new insight. For instance, as I was reading it in preparation for this liturgy, I realized that if those four individuals had not taken the paralytic with them, they would never have gotten close to Jesus. This man with disability enabled them to draw close to the person of Jesus. Their charity towards him gained them access to Jesus – a simple lesson, but a new one for me.

Scripture, like poetry and music, always offers something new and, most often, means different things to different people.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator