Daily Archives: July 6, 2026

Speaking to the Heart

Posted on by
4

Today’s readings for Mass pair Hosea and Matthew.  At first glance, they seem unrelated. The Book of Hosea speaks of God courting Israel like a faithful bridegroom. The Gospel of Matthew recounts two healing miracles: the raising of a synagogue official’s daughter and the healing of the woman with the hemorrhage. But when read together they reveal something wonderful about God – He never stops pursuing the human heart.

The prophet Hosea lived during one of the darkest periods in Israel’s history. The people had turned away from God. They had become unfaithful to the covenant. If anyone had reason to give up on a relationship, it was God. Yet listen to what he says: “I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.” (Hos 2:16) God does not say, “I’ll wait until she deserves my love.” Or, “When she finally gets her life together, I’ll take her back.”

Instead, God takes the initiative. He pursues. He invites. He speaks to the heart. God makes one of the most beautiful promises in all of Scripture: “I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy.” (v.21)

That same divine love appears in the Gospel; not in words this time, but in the actions of Jesus.A synagogue official comes to Jesus carrying every parent’s worst nightmare. His daughter has died. At the same time, a woman who has suffered for twelve years quietly reaches out to touch Jesus’ cloak. According to the Law, her condition made her ritually unclean. For years she had likely lived not only with physical suffering but also with isolation.

Two very different people. One is respected. The other lives on the margins. One approaches Jesus openly. The other comes quietly from behind. Yet Jesus welcomes both. He allows the woman to touch him, and then he says: “Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you.” (Mt 9:22)  Think about the word “Daughter.”

Jesus does not define her by her illness. He does not call her “the sick woman.” He calls her by a relationship: daughter. Then Jesus goes to the house of the official, takes the little girl by the hand, and gives her back to life. What do these two miracles have in common? They reveal the heart of God.

Jesus is always moving toward those who are suffering, those who are grieving, those who feel forgotten, those who have reached the end of their own strength. That is exactly what Hosea proclaimed centuries earlier. That remains true today. God never stops pursuing the human heart; He always makes the first move. 

We might think: “I’ll get back to consistent prayer when my life is less busy.” or “I’ll go to confession once I’ve worked things out.” or “I need to be a better person if I want God in my life.” Today’s readings tell a different story. God has already made the first move.

Long before we began searching for him, he was searching for us. Long before we reached out to touch his cloak, he had already stretched out his hand toward us. The spiritual life is not primarily about our search for God. It begins with God’s search for us. Every desire to pray, every stirring of conscience, every longing for peace, every moment we feel drawn back to the Lord is already evidence that he is pursuing our hearts.

Perhaps the best response we can make today is simply to stop running and allow God to speak to our hearts. To trust, like the woman in the Gospel, that even the smallest act of faith is enough for Christ to begin his healing work. 

God does not keep his distance. He is the Bridegroom who comes looking for his beloved. He is the Savior who walks toward the sick and the grieving. He is the Lord who never grows tired of seeking those he loves.

So stop running and listen to the God who is already speaking to your heart.

Image credit: The Woman with an Issue of Blood | James Tissot, c.1890 | Brooklyn Museum of Art | PD-US

Parables

Posted on by
Reply

This coming Sunday is the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time in Lectionary Cycle A. We read from Matthew 13, known as a “day of parables.” What is a “Parable”? Definition: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile  drawn from nature or common life,  arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness,  and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” (C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961, p. 5)  Less accurate, but perhaps more to the point – when heard, a parable should give you pause and turn your world upside down.

As captivating as Jesus’ parables are, we do not always have the full cultural context for grasping the nuance. Consider the parable of the “Prodigal Son.” Unless one understands the honor-and-shame culture of 1st century Palestine, some of the impact will be lost. The parable of the “Talents” loses some of its edge when one does not understand the significance of the amount in play and why in the world someone would in fact bury the funds. The parable of the “Good Samaritan” is reduced to the parable of a “good guy willing to help” unless one knows who the Samaritans are and what the Jews hearing the story would have thought of a Samaritan being the “hero” of the parable. But then again, that is why we study the Bible in every generation.

Given Dodd’s definition of a parable, what are the implications of this definition? Felix Just, SJ offers that:

  • The meaning of most parables is not so obvious, or at least it shouldn’t be. If we assume we know what Jesus is talking about, we are probably missing the main point; if we are too familiar with the story (having heard it so often before), we might not think carefully enough about its real meaning.
  • Most parables contain some element that is strange or unusual. They should cause you to say, “Wait a minute! That’s not how farmers do their work! That’s not what kings usually do! That’s not what normally happens in nature!” And this strange element should cause you to think!
  • Parables do not define things precisely, but rather use comparisons to describe some aspect of how God acts or interacts with human beings. Yet to say “A is like B” does not mean that “A is identical to B in all respects”; so one should be careful not to misinterpret or misapply the parables.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his Angelus message (July 10, 2011), commented on why Jesus used parable. He said that for Jesus the parable was “autobiographical” because “it reflects the experience of Jesus himself and of his preaching” as “different effects are achieved depending on the kind of reception given to the proclamation.” Pope Benedict said that Jesus makes a distinction between the general crowd and the apostles. “To those who have already decided for him, he can speak openly of the Kingdom of God” while to others he must speak in metaphor “to stimulate precisely the decision, the conversion of heart” needed. Jesus’ parables “require effort to interpret, challenging one’s intelligence but also one’s freedom.”  In grace, one has to decide to engage the parable. “God does not force us to believe in Him, but draws us to Himself through the truth and goodness of his incarnate Son. Love, in fact, always respects freedom…After all the real ‘Parable’ of God is Jesus himself, his person, under the form of his humanity, hiding and yet revealing the same deity.” In this way “God does not force us to believe in Him, but draws us to himself through the truth and goodness of his incarnate Son.”

Image credit: “The Sower” Vincent van Gogh (June 1888), Van Gogh Museum, Public Domain