“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden”

Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and

that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it

more sees more -- more unseen forms become manifest to him. -   Rumi

(Gospel Text: JN 7:1-2, 10, 25-30)

Jesus moved about within Galilee;
he did not wish to travel in

Judea,
because the Jews were trying to kill him.
But the Jewish feast

of Tabernacles was near.

But when his brothers had gone up to the

feast,
he himself also went up, not openly but as it were in

secret.

Some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem said,
“Is he not the one

they are trying to kill?
And look, he is speaking openly and they say

nothing to him.
Could the authorities have realized that he is the

Christ?
But we know where he is from.
When the Christ comes, no one

will know where he is from.”
So Jesus cried out in the temple area as

he was teaching and said,
“You know me and also know where I am

 from.
Yet I did not come on my own,
but the one who sent me, whom you

do not know, is true.
I know him, because I am from him, and he sent

me.”
So they tried to arrest him,
but no one laid a hand upon

him,
because his hour had not yet come.

All of us experience times when we speak with another person or persons

to explain something and no matter how hard we try, they fail to get

the point we are trying to make.

How could they not see what is so clear to me? Our Lord had that kind

of a problem with the Pharisees 2000 years ago, and today's gospel

reading is a good example of it.

Today, we are living in a world of spin, where the sound byte is

everything, not the context. While this may be a generalization, it

does seem that most people want to believe something that sounds good

rather than something that requires honest self reflection.



Once more we are confronted with “crowds” who want easy "believism."

I'm reminded of a recent commercial on television where a girl makes

the comment, "They can't put anything on the internet that isn't true."

The guy responds, "Where'd you hear that?" She replies, "The internet."




When we look at the teachings of the Catholic Church in relation to

this modern day "believism", one can easy concluded that some of the

practices / dogma are very hard to “digest”. Sometimes they look like

ugly hard rocks, but split them open and you will be surprised and

blessed by what you find. There are wonderful and powerful insights

that come when you invest some hard work and crack open each nugget of

teaching and find a beautiful gem of truth inside.