Some
Thoughts on the Liturgy
OPEN
MINDS
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Perhaps the biggest problem that Jesus had with the religious
leaders of Israel
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was their refusal to open themselves to the possibility of
change
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here, in today’s Gospel reading
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Jesus was upset because they had closed their minds to him:
Looking around
at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart…
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and in particular what Jesus was trying to point out here—the
lesson in yesterday’s Gospel as well—that people are more
important than law
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healing someone who needs it is more important even than the
sacred law of keeping the Sabbath
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When we are not limited by our own little boxed-in minds
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that is, limited by the things that we want, the way we want
them done, the way of selfishness, and become instead, open to
what God wants for us
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when we want
to listen to what he says in the Scriptures and in the
readings that we have at Mass, when we realize what happens to
us in life is really ultimately under God’s direction
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then we can grow spiritually
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Perhaps the best way to define maturity is from the
perspective of awareness
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or being open to possibilities
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the opposite of it is “hardness of heart” as Jesus saw in
the Pharisees—the Pharisees were spiritually immature
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of us simply go through our lives without being aware that
life, and in particular, the spiritual life, is so much more
than what we think it is
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it may mean some re-thinking, some re-doing, and even some
re-forming
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The whole point of the first reading, the story that we have
come to know as David and Goliath,
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is that God is in charge of our lives
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and if we manage to allow God to direct us, we will always win
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if we manage to open our minds to God, we will be able to
develop the potential that we all have to be good Christians.
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