I wonder if we have considered how blessed and fortunate we are that the veil has been lifted and we can experience the presence of God all because our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had come.
He suffered for our sins, died, and was resurrected. Through Him, we can see the face of God and experience the wonders of His love.
And yet how many of us come before Him in reverence?
Before the veil was lifted, we read in today’s First Reading how the Lord our God even told the people to prepare themselves through Moses. They should wear clean clothes, and stand ready. But only Moses was chosen to see Him face to face as he ascended to the mountaintop where God dwelt.
Today we can not only be in His presence but we can hear His words spoken to our hearts through Scripture. Whether it’s through parables, or His word for us,He leads us to the joy of the Gospel and to that deeper relationship with Him.
Yet there are still many of us with eyes that do not see, ears that cannot hear Him, or hearts that cannot perceive Him because of our attachment to ways of the world and our obstinacy of not following after our Lord and His will for us.
Lord open my eyes to see You, hear You and live my life with and in You. Amen
Saint Charbel Makhlouf, Pray for us…
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First reading
Exodus 19:1-2,9-11,16-20
Moses speaks with God on Sinai
Three months after they came out of the land of Egypt, on that day the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Sinai. From Rephidim they set out again; and when they reached the wilderness of Sinai, there in the wilderness they pitched their camp; there facing the mountain Israel pitched camp.
The Lord said to Moses, ‘I am coming to you in a dense cloud so that the people may hear when I speak to you and may trust you always.’ And Moses took the people’s reply back to the Lord.
The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to the people and tell them to prepare themselves today and tomorrow. Let them wash their clothing and hold themselves in readiness for the third day, because on the third day the Lord will descend on the mountain of Sinai in the sight of all the people.’
Now at daybreak on the third day there were peals of thunder on the mountain and lightning flashes, a dense cloud, and a loud trumpet blast, and inside the camp all the people trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the bottom of the mountain. The mountain of Sinai was entirely wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. Like smoke from a furnace the smoke went up, and the whole mountain shook violently. Louder and louder grew the sound of the trumpet. Moses spoke, and God answered him with peals of thunder. The Lord came down on the mountain of Sinai, on the mountain top, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain; and Moses went up.
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Gospel
Matthew 13:10-17
Prophets and holy men longed to hear what you hear
The disciples went up to Jesus and asked, ‘Why do you talk to them in parables?’ ‘Because’ he replied, ‘the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are revealed to you, but they are not revealed to them. For anyone who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough; but from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away. The reason I talk to them in parables is that they look without seeing and listen without hearing or understanding. So in their case this prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled:
You will listen and listen again, but not understand, see and see again, but not perceive.
For the heart of this nation has grown coarse, their ears are dull of hearing, and they have shut their eyes, for fear they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and be converted and be healed by me.
‘But happy are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear! I tell you solemnly, many prophets and holy men longed to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.’
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