Blessed are you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth,
for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom
to mere children. MT 11:25
JEREMIAH 2:1-3,7-8,12-13
My Soul's Beloved,
What the Lord had said through the prophet then to His chosen people, You say to us now, O Lord, my God. We are the new Jerusalem; we are the vine that You plucked and grafted into Yourself. We receive our life from You. We are fed on Your Flesh and Blood, and yet, O Lord, we have turned our backs on You, the source of all life and love.
Is it any wonder, Beloved, that we the Church are struggling? We are looking for sustenance in ways where Wisdom and prudence have long fled. Our lives are empty, shallow, and filled with sadness, gloom, and misery. We tell ourselves we are happy by filling our days and nights with empty and tawdry pleasures that drag us even deeper into the depths of sadness and gloom.
How much longer, O Lord, will Your anointed and consecrated ones lead Your sheep astray? How much longer will they confirm Your sheep in their sins, making light of Your commandments? Your ways are holy, and Your Word is Truth.
How much longer, O Lord, will a watered-down version of the Truth be dished out to Your people so that the minority are placated while the majority wander about confused?
Pity us, Lord. We are governed not only by weak-minded and ignorant shepherds who make no attempt to study the great, saintly minds of the past or to allow the Holy Spirit to guide them into all Truth so that they might feed Your flock, but also by wicked, evil, greedy, and callous men and women in the public square who seek only their own good. They are ready to sacrifice everyone for the sake of their cronies. They are ready and willing to destroy and kill the many for the sake of their insatiable greed for wealth, power, and position.
Who, O Lord, can we turn to in our misery but You? Do not abandon us, O Lord. Hear our cry and restore us; heal us. Bring us back. Destroy those who seek to destroy us, lest we too are lost forever. Have mercy on us, O Lord, for Your Name’s sake. Have mercy on us. Amen.
The word of the Lord was addressed to me, saying, ‘Go and shout this in the hearing of Jerusalem:
‘“The Lord says this:
I remember the affection of your youth,
the love of your bridal days:
you followed me through the wilderness,
through a land unsown.
Israel was sacred to the Lord,
the first-fruits of his harvest;
anyone who ate of this had to pay for it,
misfortune came to them –
it is the Lord who speaks.”
‘I brought you to a fertile country
to enjoy its produce and good things;
but no sooner had you entered than you defiled my land,
and made my heritage detestable.
The priests have never asked, “Where is the Lord?”
Those who administer the Law have no knowledge of me.
The shepherds have rebelled against me;
the prophets have prophesied in the name of Baal,
following things with no power in them.
‘You heavens, stand aghast at this,
stand stupefied, stand utterly appalled
– it is the Lord who speaks.
Since my people have committed a double crime:
they have abandoned me,
the fountain of living water,
only to dig cisterns for themselves,
leaky cisterns
that hold no water.’
PSALM 35(36):6-11
In you, Lord, is the source of life.
Your love, Lord, reaches to heaven;
your truth to the skies.
Your justice is like God’s mountain,
your judgements like the deep.
O Lord, how precious is your love.
My God, the sons of men
find refuge in the shelter of your wings.
They feast on the riches of your house;
they drink from the stream of your delight.
In you is the source of life
and in your light we see light.
Keep on loving those who know you,
doing justice for upright hearts.
In you, Lord, is the source of life.
MATTHEW 13:10-17
My Soul's Beloved,
MATTHEW 13:10-17
My Soul's Beloved,
Like the disciples to whom it was given this singular grace to see You, hear You, touch You, talk with You, and be moved by Your goodness, tenderness, mercy, compassion, wisdom, love, and power, we too, O Lord, who belong to Your Church — One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic — are singularly blessed. We are members of Your Body. We are grafted into You. We receive life from You through the Sacraments You instituted. We are fed and nourished by Your Flesh and Blood.
Those who do not belong to her are outside of her by choice. Seeing, they refuse to see; hearing, they refuse to hear. Since this is a deliberate choice to be deaf and blind, they, by an act of their will, place themselves outside Your Body.
So many of them, O Lord, can be heard in debates with holy Catholic men and women openly declaring that they have difficulties with many Catholic doctrines because of their limited human intellect and because concupiscence makes it hard for them to embrace God’s commands in their entirety. Whatever they believe gives them the freedom to pick and choose what suits them at any given time. Individual hearts, as well as the hearts of nations, have grown so coarse that they are prepared to accept outright evil as good and even to justify it.
Today, Beloved, I wish to thank You for the Church and for the grace and privilege granted to those whom God has willed to belong to her. It is only in this Church that we find the fullness of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth, for it is here that the Holy Spirit makes His home, animates the whole Body, and gives it His life.
‘But happy are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear! I tell you solemnly, many prophets and holy men longed to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.’
The disciples went up to Jesus and asked, ‘Why do you talk to them in parables?’ ‘Because’ he replied, ‘the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are revealed to you, but they are not revealed to them. For anyone who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough; but from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away. The reason I talk to them in parables is that they look without seeing and listen without hearing or understanding. So in their case this prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled:
You will listen and listen again, but not understand,
see and see again, but not perceive.
For the heart of this nation has grown coarse,
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 heart,
and be converted
and be healed by me.
‘But happy are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear! I tell you solemnly, many prophets and holy men longed to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.’
You will listen and listen again, but not understand,
see and see again, but not perceive.
For the heart of this nation has grown coarse,
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 heart,
and be converted
and be healed by me.
‘But happy are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear! I tell you solemnly, many prophets and holy men longed to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.’
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