Hearing what I want to hear???

THE WORD AND THE SAINT 

July 31, 2020: Remembering St. Ignatius of Loyola
Jeremiah 26: 1-9; Matthew 13: 54-58

Have you been to a Hearing Test centre? Get in touch with a technician there, and the person would explaining to you: there are different kinds of deafness... mild hearing loss, moderate hearing loss, moderately severe hearing loss, severe hearing loss and profound hearing loss! At times spiritually too these hearing losses can be calculated in a similar fashion, but we need to add one more crucial type of hearing challenge. That is, Selective Hearing Loss! 

Thanking God for a great saint today - St. Ignatius of Loyola, we are are reminded of something that was very close to his heart: Discernment! Discernment of what to do, what to choose, how to decide and how to live! It is hardly surprising that the present Holy Father, a Jesuit himself, insists so much of this - accompanying the young on their path of discernment. One of the deadliest enemies of a sincere discernment is the same as what we have just spoken of: Selective Hearing Loss.

It is nothing but, hearing only what I want to hear, or refusing to hear what I do not want to hear merely because it causes me inconvenience. This is the syndrome that we see the people are in, in both the first reading and the Gospel. When Jeremiah spoke to them about the impeding danger and their need to return to the Lord, they deemed him liable to death. When Jesus spoke to them on issues that really challenged their daily life, they looked at him with suspicion and despised him for the "ordinariness" from which he hailed.

The Word of God keeps rushing into our hearts. It would cleanse it, refresh it and fill it with life, if only we allow it to. If we are guarded, biased and suspicious, we would break no ground towards perfection. On this day when we remember Ignatius, a tough man who made tough choices to do everything for the greater glory of God, let us allow the Word to melt our hearts and inspire us to work out of this syndrome of 'hearing merely what we want to hear'! Let us hear the Word and accept its challenges, on a daily basis!