Let us grow deeper in our friendship with Jesus

Jer. 2:1-3.7-8.12-13, Mt. 13:10-17. Today's first reading recounts the displeasure of God at His people for their ingratitude and lack of faith, their constant disobedience and sinfulness, as they proved to be rebellious and unwilling to embrace the love of God. God has ever shown His patience and kindness, His mercy and compassion through generations, but the people abandoned Him, betrayed Him and left Him for the comfort and the false allures and pleasures of worldliness, putting their trust instead in the pagan idols and foreign gods like Baal, Ashtaroth among others. They had forgotten the wonders and the love that God showed their ancestors and allowed the devil to tempt them and sway them to the false paths.

In order not to sway from the right path, Jesus presents His message in parables. The Gospel itself raises a question: They want to know why Jesus, when He speaks to the people, speaks only in parables: “Why do You talk to them in parables?” The parables enable deeper kind of listening, provoke reflection and can lead to transformation. In today's Gospel, Jesus tells His disciples that the mysteries of God are shared with them, but divine mysteries are not revealed to those who are not open to the truth. Jesus wants to reveal the truth to the sincere seekers who are receptive of the revelation of God in an effective manner. Parables set up a new way of speaking to the people about God. People are impressed by the way in which Jesus taught as it leads us to enter into the story beginning from the experience of life. Through our experience it urges us to discover that God is present in our daily life. The parable is a participative form of teaching and educating that does not change everything in one minute. It does not make one know; it makes one discover. The parable changes our perspective; it makes the person who listens a contemplative; it helps us to observe reality.

May the Lord help us to be faithful disciples of Christ and seek Him in the most unlikely situations of our life! Amen!! Remain safe and have a glorious day!!!