Christ the Cornerstone

Listen to God’s Word with an open mind and heart

“A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen” (Dt 18:15).

Christians believe that the Eternal Word of God became flesh and lived among us as a man. Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate, was a preacher and teacher whose powerful words have transformed the lives of countless women and men throughout the past 2,000 years.

Listening to Jesus, we find hope in times of despair, comfort in the midst of sorrow, and the courage to overcome our own sins and the sin of the world.

Listening to God’s word is not like ordinary listening. It takes more than just good hearing, an open mind or even an attentive, understanding heart.

To really hear what God is saying to us—in sacred Scripture, in prayer, in the sacraments and in loving service to others—we must be spiritually attuned to the most profound truths about ourselves and the world we live in.

To be “spiritually attuned” means to be pure of heart, to surrender our own will, and to let go of our preconceived ideas and our self-centeredness. Truly listening to God’s word means letting ourselves be open (and vulnerable) so that we can hear things we don’t necessarily want to hear.

In the first reading for the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Dt 18:15-20), Moses tells the people of Israel: “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen. This is exactly what you requested of the Lord, your God, at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let us not again hear the voice of the Lord, our God, nor see this great fire any more, lest we die’ ” (Dt 18:15-16).

The voice of the Lord can be an awesome, fearful thing. That’s why, initially, God spoke through prophets and teachers like Moses and John the Baptist. But since the incarnation of God’s Word in Jesus of Nazareth, he speaks to us directly—using ordinary language that anyone who is spiritually attuned can understand and accept.

In the second reading for this Sunday (1 Cor 7:32-35), St. Paul expresses his desire that we be “free of anxieties” (1 Cor 7:32). The context is his concern for married couples who are distracted by “the things of the world” (1 Cor 7:33, 34), making it difficult for them to be spiritually attuned to God’s will for them and for their family, the domestic Church. But every Christian, regardless of his or her state in life, must overcome those things that draw our attention away from what St. Paul calls “adherence to the Lord without distraction” (1 Cor 7:35). In fact, one of the greatest challenges all of us face is finding the right times and places to tune out all the chatter and chaos in our lives so that we can tune in to the voice of God whenever and wherever he speaks to us.

The responsorial psalm for the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Ps 95) sings of the joy that we feel when we come into the Lord’s presence with thanksgiving and “bow down in worship” (Ps 95:6) before him. It cautions us not to “harden our hearts” (Ps 95:8) lest we be unable to hear God’s voice as happened to the people of Israel “at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert, where your fathers tempted me; they tested me though they had seen my works” (Ps 95:8-9). Joy comes through openness to the will of God, but as St. Paul would say, if our hearts are closed, or our attention is elsewhere, we are full of anxiety, not freed from it.

The Gospel reading for this Sunday (Mk 1:21–28) tells us that when Jesus speaks, he commands our attention. As a result, St. Mark says, “The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes” (Mk 1:22). The force of Jesus’ words is extraordinarily powerful because there is no distinction between who he is and what he says. Jesus is the Word of God. He lives what he preaches, and he does what he teaches us to do without any qualification or fear. Jesus is spiritually attuned to the will of his Father, and even when God’s will is difficult (as in the Garden of Gethsemane), Jesus always says “yes.”

Our challenge as disciples of Jesus is to seek God’s will and to be obedient to the voice of the Lord even when it makes us uncomfortable. May God’s grace help us to listen with open hearts and to respond generously whenever the Lord speaks to us. †