- First Reading: Jer 2:1–3, 7–8, 12–13
- Responsorial Psalm: Ps 36:6–7ab, 8–9, 10–11
- Gospel: Matt 13:10–17
I think today’s Gospel can initially be unsettling. It can sound as though the Lord is intentionally withholding his message from certain people. But we have to look more carefully to understand what he is really saying.
Our lectionary says, “Gross is the heart of this people.” Other translations say, “[T]his people’s heart has grown dull.” NRSVCE The word behind “gross” and “dull” literally means “to make fat” or “to fatten up.” Gk pachyno The image is of a heart that has grown heavy and sluggish—a heart that can no longer move as freely or respond as readily as it was meant to.
Jesus is saying that these people are no longer willing to listen and hear. Through their own choices, they have closed themselves off to that possibility. If we are unwilling to seek the knowledge of the Kingdom of God, its mysteries cannot simply be forced upon us.
Christ offers us his words, but then it falls to us to desire understanding enough to seek it. That is one reason he speaks in parables. A parable asks something of us. We are meant to think about it, carry it with us, and return to it throughout the day.
In the Book of Psalms, the psalmist speaks of turning his mind to a parable in order to understand the difficult problem before him. Ps 49:4 NRSVCE. Some translations may place it at 49:5 or even 48:5. The Hebrew word used is masal which means parable, words of wisdom, or even riddle. He spends time with those words of wisdom, meditating upon them until they begin to illuminate his situation.
That is also Christ’s intention with his parables. We are not supposed to hear them once and then let them go.
Sometimes we can even be deceived by the fact that Jesus explains a parable for us. He has just given the parable of the sower, and in the passage that follows, he will explain what it means. We may be tempted to think, “Now I understand it. I can move on and find something else to think about.”
But Jesus does not reveal the meaning so that our reflection will stop there. He gives us some help because he knows that we struggle. His explanation is not the fullness of the parable’s meaning. It does not yet tell us how to put the parable into action or what it means concretely in our own lives. The explanation is a starting point.
If we are truly receiving the parables—and, indeed, all the words of Christ—as he intends, then we hear them at morning mass or encounter them in our morning prayer, and we begin thinking about them. Throughout the day, we keep returning to those words. We meditate upon them and look at the situations of our lives, asking, “Does this word apply here? Is this what the Lord is speaking about?”
We allow the word of God to remain in our minds and hearts. As we do, its meaning gradually opens before us. The Holy Spirit prompts us and reveals the word’s true value in our own lives—not merely its abstract or literal meaning, but what it means concretely for us here and now.
This is how the Holy Spirit speaks to us: through the words of Scripture, through the parables, and through the other sayings of wisdom that return to our minds and guide us.
If we want to be among those blessed people whose eyes truly see and whose ears truly hear—blessed even beyond the prophets and righteous people of the Old Testament who longed to see what we have seen—then we must hold Christ’s words in our minds and hearts throughout the day.
We must continually return to them until their meaning is finally unfurled before us, giving us authentic understanding and drawing us ever closer to the Kingdom of God.