Gift of Understanding

Today on Pinterest I saw the familiar pin “Catholics DO NOT worship Mary”….and I chuckled.  This topic comes up so often.  This lead my mind to wander to my feelings on how much openness we all need to have regarding the MYSTERIES of the church, and how we need to be open to deeper meaning of the readings and teaching given to us by the inspired writers of the Bible…..then that lead me to think about today’s readings (Thurs. July 23. 2015)  that I heard in morning mass, especially the gospel reading (MT 10:13-17), in which the disciples asked Jesus “Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?” Jesus pretty much explains that He does this because some will listen more deeply and will have more understanding and some won’t.  It is all gift…..however, how much effort do we put into learning and understanding these mysteries? How much do we ‘take it to the core or your being’….as Mother Theresa said many times.

I was asked recently, “Why is Eucharist so important to Catholics?”  For myself, and MANY Catholics…it is because we have taken the meaning of the readings from the Gospels to the core of our being. Jesus explains that “This is my Body, this is my Blood.  You cannot have life without it. These are hard readings to wrap ourselves around, perhaps, and many left Jesus after He said this…and many still do. We need to pray for those who struggle with faith or don’t have faith…..but we also need to pray for our own understanding and enthusiasm for understanding.  There is always going to be a learning curve. Praise God for the Gifts.