Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Listening to the Word
The disciples approached him and said, “Why do you speak to them 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 listen or 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 heart 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. Mt 13,10-17
We are sure that the prophet Isaiah will have an heir: he is our grandson Edoardo. Today, meanwhile Maria Francesca was changing his diaper on our bed, next to the Bible which was open to this page of the gospel, the spirit of God should have told to Edoardo the same words which it said to Isaiah over two thousand years ago: “Eat this page”. Edoardo has extended the hand, he took it, he tore it and he has thrown it in the mouth. Now this “Word” became flesh of his flesh and a day in the future, after been grown up, he will explain it to us. It is good that he will do it because, while it is clear why Jesus spoke in parables, it is a bit less clear the fact that “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”. Pending that Edoardo begins to talk and explain it to us, we say what the Holy Spirit has told us. “Those who have” – the Holy Spirit suggested to us, in prayer – “are those whose minds and hearts are open to understand the Holy Scriptures, because they know how to listen”. “Those who have not” are those who do not arise in this attitude of listening, for whom the word of God, once heard, does not penetrate and slips away like water on the glass. It would seem, namely, that the human mind, in front of the Holy Scriptures, operates such as the on / off valves which are installed on the industrial plants. These valves cannot be set in an intermediate position: either they are fully opened and the flow passes freely or they are completely closed and nothing passes through. Indeed, even when the mind and the heart are open to the listening, the message of the Word always goes in part, because the pipes of the grace are always a little dirty, due to our humanity and our sin.