Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time
The global listening
On another occasion he began to teach by the sea. A very large crowd gathered around him so that he got into a boat on the sea and sat down. And the whole crowd was beside the sea on land. And he taught them at length in parables, and in the course of his instruction he said to them, “Hear this! A sower went out to sow. Mk 4,1-3
Jesus “was used to teach a lot of things by parables”. This symbolic language of the parables could seem more comprehensible than the direct talking, a simple mode to communicate; but it is not so. The language of the images is very reach of meanings and of messages only for the person open to listen calmly, receiving in the depth of the heart the one who speaks and what he is saying. To understand the parables of Jesus it is necessary, then, to accept him as the Lord and to sit ideally close to his feet and to listen to him with the same desire of truth of the ones who followed him all along the lake of Tiberias or as Mary in the dinner at Betania. With this attitude of listening, the parables provide meanings and messages which someone could never imagine, which are spread around in the mind and in the heart, as a vase of flavors floods by perfume the entire room. Here you are, then, the key word of the today gospel is “let’s listen”. We are, however, addressed to a listening which, starting from the words of the gospel, is capable to be extended to every manifestation of the life, of the nature and of the history. The final result will be the miracle of recomposing into God facts and experiences, as the merging of fragments of a picture pulled up from our sin and from the sin of the world. The mysteries of the kingdom of the heaven and of the entire creation are confided to the persons capable to listen. By beginning with the listening of the gospel, the exhortation to listen becomes global: it is possible to listen by the hears, by the eyes and by all our entire being, up to catch the infinite messages which are offered by the life: we listen the sun which is setting behind the mountains, the wind which blows over the roofs and puffs all along the streets, the sea which yells under the libeccio or the music of the surf which is made by the stones of the shore when they sizzle by the time of the lull. We listen to the cicadas by daily time and to the crickets by night. We listen to the great events of the history and to the small facts of our day, we listen to the chronicle of newspapers and newsletters and we listen to the peeping of Edward in the cradle. By listening to the secret messages which reach us every day and storing them in our heart, we learn to acknowledge the voice of the Lord, in the life as well as in the gospel. If we follow that voice, it is difficult to lose our route.