Seeing Needs Saying

July 24: Thursday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13; Psalm 36:6-7, 8-9, 10-11; Matthew 13:10-17

Thoughts to help us surrender to Jesus expressing himself through us in ministry.

“The priests asked not, ‘Where is the Lord?’” Jeremiah 2:8

When God says the “priests and shepherds,” those who “deal with the law,” “know me not,” it means religion is withering. “They have forsaken me, the source of living waters.”

We don’t know God because we don’t talk about him. He becomes a non-thought. Then we don’t see him where he is: in the gifts he gives us, in the people we deal with. The proverb becomes: “Out of mind, out of sight.”

We don’t see what is never said. We don’t look for God in his words, because no one ever repeats them. We aren’t aware of him at Mass because no one seems to know he is there. If he is making an impression on the congregation, they are hiding it well.  “Enthus—as in theos—iastic” means “possessed by a god.” Unenthusiastic means closed to the divine.

Preachers can talk about the law without knowing God. We can keep God’s laws without talking to or about him him. Jesus said, “It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). If our mouth is silent, our heart is probably empty. If we talk about everything but God, our religion shrinks to being about everything but God.

So say what you see. If you have nothing to say about God, start looking.

PRAY: “Lord, open my lips. Help me to praise you.”

PRACTICE: What God shows you, show others.