This is the task at hand….“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts”

Today at Holy Mass we hear in the gospel of St Matthew how Jesus tells the crowd that no matter who God sends to the people, they simply do not want to hear it….."To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another, 'We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.' For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, 'He is possessed by a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, 'Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is vindicated by her works”……What should this tell us?….The problem is not the message or even the messenger…The problem seems to be the hardness of our hearts…….Mankind just does not want to hear it because mankind does not want to change…..We would rather wallow in your own misery than admit we were wrong and work to make a change….This my friends is a BIG problem as well as a BIG obstacle to overcome…..In order for us to enter heaven, we must “get past” this mindset….As life moves on many things begin to “breakdown”…Our bodies become weaker…Our mind is not as sharp…Our career prospects are not as numerous…As we see and feel our own mortality we should reflect more upon how our time here on earth really does end!…But life does not have “end” with our mortal death…But that outcome is entirely up to us!…..We must make a choice and no choice is a choice…We will surely die one day and getting into heaven is not a “given”…Its a choice, a daily one and that choice begins now……“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts”

“The Lord will come; go out to meet him! He is the prince of peace”

The human mind is a funny thing….On paper something can be perfectly logical, like a mathematical solution, yet the human mind will look at the solution and swear up and down that the right answer is not the right answer…Even at the cost of personal pain and hardship as a result of questioning the right answer……As I have stated before in these reflections…”You tell a tree by the fruit it bears” and if the world was perfectly logical and open to correction, the world would make the necessary changes to “bear fruit”…But that is not how it works sadly…..The good news is God does not give up on us…God knows us better then we know ourselves and as a result, he puts in front of us people and situations in life to help us to “see”….That is what life really is all about…We are all on a journey back to God but in order to get to our final destination, we must be purified….We can resist that “process” and most do to a certain degree…But as we get older we “should” start to see that the “process” is for our own good…But as with all things, “the process” of us “figuring it out” comes to an end when we die…..When we face God and we all will - God will show us how he continuously reached a hand out to us throughout our entire life…God does that in so many different ways…But then it is up to us to reach a hand back!…If we choose not to - How can we expect to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?…….Life around us changes all the time and we must change as well…..St Paul tell us in Scripture….”When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things”…In telling us that, St Paul is implying we must constantly “evolve”…Only to become the people God created us to be, a holy people, ready to enter the Kingdom of God……..This “process” applies to all of us…I distinctly remember when Pope John Paul II died…He was completely broken and old…This man at one time was athletic, a great communicator and had a brilliant mind - He had it all!…Then age set in and God slowly “took everything away”…Some may say that was unfortunate…And from a worldly prospective it was sad to see…But if we "look underneath the surface"…God was “stripping away” all Pope John Paul’s gifts for a reason….Leaving him with nothing more than God himself….This is how it all began and how it all ends for all of us - For the great and the small of the world alike…To view life in this manner and accept it…To accept what God gives and takes away…All of which is apart of the sanctification process….Whether we accept this reality or not is up to us…Not accepting it however does not change it - Get that though your head!…In not accepting it we just become bitter…But if we accept the “process of sanctification”, when presented to us through the events and outcomes of life…Life is so much more enjoyable - We have peace - We have a purpose - And we see clearly our destination in the distance…All this requires us to overcome our greatest obstacle…The hardness of our hearts….Remember what Jesus said in the gospel today at Mass….”Wisdom is vindicated by her works”……The outcomes of our choices in the here and now should tell us “what works and what does not work”…Its then up to us to be honest with ourselves and make changes

“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts”

Today in St Matthew’s Gospel Jesus addresses the crowd who rejects him…..His statement gets “underneath” all the excuses the people give for not listening to God…A good priest once told me something I will never for get…He said, “Joe, many people will tell you all the reasons why they do not like the Catholic Church, why they will never go back to Church or why they will never be Catholic…But under all those reasons…There is one big reason and that reason is not communicated……And that obstacle to God is very real, very personal and many times very painful…..This is our task as Catholics, to help the world “get over” that one big “obstacle”, which keeps them from God…How do we do this?…….We do this by our witness not by our words…And in order to give such a witness, we must strive to become a holy people…This is the task at hand….“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts”