Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 27, 2023
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072723.cfm
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings lead us to consider when, why, and how God speaks.
We all know that the big scene from Exodus is the delivery of the Ten Commandments. So as Sinai bubbles and churns in today’s reading, we may be waiting for that theophany.
But today’s passage from Exodus is not about the Commandments themselves. It is about getting oneself ready to hear what God is about to say.
God instructs Moses on how to prepare the people so that they have listening hearts able to respond with understanding and commitment.
While Israel was encamped here in front of the mountain,
Exodus 19:9-11
the LORD told Moses,
“I am coming to you in a dense cloud,
so that when the people hear me speaking with you,
they may always have faith in you also.”
When Moses, then, had reported to the LORD the response of the people,
the LORD added, “Go to the people
and have them sanctify themselves today and tomorrow.
Make them wash their garments and be ready for the third day;
for on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai
before the eyes of all the people.”
- They are to expect a “cloud”
- They are to see Moses as a conduit to God.
- They are to prepare their hearts by symbolically preparing their garments.
- They are to wait, in the mode of a vigil, for the Lord to speak.
In the late 1960s I, like the rest of the immediately post-Vatican II Church, was hungry to learn more enlightened theology. Around that time, I had the amazing opportunity of attending a lecture by the controversial priest and theologian Fr. Hans Küng. Some considered him a prophet, and some an iconoclast. But no one disagreed that he was a genius and an eminent voice for reform in the Catholic Church.
I was just beginning my theological education, and I knew — well actually — zip!
So I began to read everything I could find by or about Küng. I did serious prep work before the day came for the lecture. And it helped. I was ready to listen. My brain was spinning when I left the presentation (Küng is not easy!). Still, what little I understood inspired me to the next steps in my learning which has been life-long.
I think that’s what God is doing in today’s passage – readying hearts to listen to God’s life-long invitation to Covenant. That Covenant will be rooted in the community’s hearts by their faithfulness to the spirit of the Ten Commandments. And it will grow like any healthy relationship in love and mutual disclosure.
In our Gospel, Jesus talks about listening too. When asked why he spoke in parables to the crowd, Jesus replies:
Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven
Matthew 13:11-13
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.
Parables can be a little bit like those Sinai clouds – their truth may not be immediately evident. But by faithfulness, the horizon clears and the light dawns. Although they might appear to be, parables are not descriptions of sowers and seed, and prodigal children or devoted fathers. Jesus’s parables are revelations about us and God, told in simple stories so that we won’t be quite as dazed by their powerful truth as I was by that long-ago lecture.
When I walked out of the Küng lecture, believe me, I was in a cloud. His presentation was so dense with meaning that I felt like I knew less coming out than going in! Sometimes when we hear the parables, we might have a similar feeling. But that’s why we pray, year after year, with the infinitely revealing scriptures. They meet us where we are in our particular circumstances, and will always take us deeper into God if we are prepared to let them.
And Jesus assures us that our efforts to follow him will be rewarded:
But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
Matthew 13:16-17
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
Coming into deeper relationship with God takes time – dedicated time for silence, prayer, reflection, learning, and action born of contemplation. Let’s renew our deep desire for this kind of relationship.
Prose: excerpts from “The Cloud of Unknowing“, which is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer in the Late Middle Ages. The underlying message of this work suggests that the way to know God is to abandon consideration of God’s particular activities and attributes, and be courageous enough to surrender one’s mind and ego to the realm of “unknowing”, at which point one may begin to glimpse the nature of God. (Wikipedia)
- When you first begin, you find only darkness, and as it were a cloud of unknowing. You don’t know what this means except that in your will you feel a simple steadfast intention reaching out towards God. Do what you will, and this darkness and this cloud remain between you and God… Reconcile yourself to wait in this darkness as long as is necessary, but still go on longing after him whom you love.
- The nature of love is that it shares everything. Love Jesus, and everything he has is yours.…He may, perhaps, send out a shaft of spiritual light, which pierces this cloud of unknowing beteween you, and show you some of his secrets… then will you feel your affection flame with the fire of his love, far more than I can possibly say now…
Music: Transcending from “The Cloud of Unknowing” by Robert Kyr
Caritas patiens est benigna est
omnia suffert omnia credit
omnia sperat omnia sustinet
videmus enim nunc
per speculum in enigmate
tunc autem facie ad faciem
nunc cognosco ex parte
tunc autem cognoscam
sicut et cognitus sum
nunc autem manet
fides spes caritas
tria haec
maior autem his est caritas
Love is patient, Love is kind.
It bears all things, Believes all things,
Hopes all things, Endures all things.
For now we see
In a mirror, dimly,
But then we will see face to face.
Now I know only in part;
Then I will know fully,
Even as I have been fully known.
So now remain Faith, hope, love; These three,
But the greatest of these is love.
Lavish Mercy 