Thursday of the Third Week of Lent
Today’s responsorial psalm refrain “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts,” could be a slogan for Lent (Ps 95:8). This is a time of the liturgical year when we work on hearing God’s voice and responding with love. If we think that this should be an easy task, we need only look at our two readings for today in order to see that it is not.
Our first passage today is from Jeremiah, who brings both a good and a bad message. We see the opportunity given to the people of God; God invites them to honor him as God by following his law. It is a tremendous gift to be the people of God. But the bad part of Jeremiah’s message is that the people did not respond with loving hearts. Instead, “they walked in the hardness of their hearts” (Jer 7:25), ignoring the prophets. God’s voice is there for them to hear, but they do not listen.
When we turn to the gospel reading from Luke, we see another invitation from God. Jesus’ healing of a demon-possessed mute man ought to inspire those who witness it to recognize God’s voice. Jesus is God, there among them all. But they do not listen to God’s voice; they do not recognize Jesus as God in their midst. Instead, they try to link Jesus’ healing powers to the devil instead of seeing that the Kingdom of God is upon them. They have already hardened their hearts, and, in so doing, have put themselves in opposition to Jesus.
We all have the same tendency to do this. Like those Jeremiah spoke to, we sometimes squander our invitation from God. Like those in the gospel reading, we sometimes fail to recognize Jesus in our midst. God may be speaking, but we’re too busy listening to the world around us – the television, the radio, politicians, weather forecasters, car commercials and so on – to listen to God. We often become so absorbed by our surroundings and our own concerns that we neglect what really matters.
“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Ps 95:8). If you think that you haven’t been hearing God’s voice, you might want to ask yourself why. Are you trying to listen? Are you giving God an opportunity to speak? God speaks to us every day, in a multitude of ways – through spouses, children, friends, nature, Scripture, the Eucharist, and so many other ways. God also speaks to us in our suffering and daily challenges, and, during this time of Lent, we are invited in particular to make some small sacrifices and unite these to Christ’s own suffering. One of the purposes of these Lenten resolutions is to allow us to listen better—to try to change our everyday patterns so that we are more aware of God’s voice speaking to us.
Today, let us take some time to reflect on whether Lent is helping us to open our ears... and our hearts.
Maria Morrow