Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 7-9
1 Cor 7:32-35
Mk 1:21-28
"Single-mindedness of Heart"
After spending most of my years in school and a few years in the working world, I have noticed a very interesting habit about myself and perhaps you might experience something similar. Every time a due date for a major paper or examination rolls around, my room and surroundings gets very clean. Every time something big comes up that I have to do and don’t really want to do, other things get done. If I really need to clean my room, I try to find some paper work that needs to be done. It’s almost a game: Professional Procrastination. Robert Benchley, an American Humorist of the early to mid-19th Century once said, “Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.”
Isn’t that so true? Don’t raise your hands, but how many of you have done your taxes? How many of you when trying to do your taxes will start looking around the house for those important papers, look at how messy your garage is, start cleaning out the garage, realize you need a garage sale, start planning a garage sale, and then realizing that you have to redo your landscape because you don’t neighbors judging your house when they come over for the garage sale, then cleaning out the shed and building a couple of shelves in the shed because your gardening tools aren’t very organized…. Wait what was I supposed to be doing again? Oh yeah… taxes, now where did I put those darn receipts? Oh yeah in the garage. And kids: how many times have your parents told you to wash up for supper and you have to beat this level on the Xbox, finish the chapter in this book, or finish this part of the show? It is amazing how many things you can get done provided it is the thing that we are not supposed to be doing.
One of the greatest challenges in our lives is having single-mindedness and purpose. Why is it so hard to do what we are supposed to do? Today, we sing, If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts in the Responsorial Psalm. Psalm 95 is a psalm that is very familiar to priests and deacons and all those that pray the Liturgy of the Hours because it is the first thing we pray every. single. morning. For some it gets so redundant and so boring to be praying the same psalm over and over again. But this psalm speaks to us about the importance of listening to God’s voice. Is there a better way to start the day than to listen to His voice? The psalm goes on to talk about the people of Israel disobeying – Where your fathers tempted me; they tested me though they had seen my works. The psalm ends with this: Forty years I endured that generation, I said 'They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know my ways.’ So I swore in my anger, ‘They shall not enter into my rest.’ Wow! Have a nice day? That’s the way I’d like to start my day everyday with fear and trembling: Eternal damnation and punishment if I do not listen to God’s voice. And people wonder why Father is not having a good day!! And yet, that is what I pray every morning: So I swore in my anger, 'They shall not enter into my rest.’ Why couldn’t we pray a nicer psalm like Psalm 23, where the Lord is my Shepherd and that he will lead me to green pastures and still waters? Wouldn’t that be nicer?
The Lord knows us so well – that our hearts are so easily swayed and quickly distracted. He knows that even if He were to put green pastures and still waters right in front of our noses, we would try to look for greener pastures and fresher waters. He gives us this beautiful gift of free will and the ability to think for ourselves. And yet, because of the effects of original sin, we choose to follow our way or someone or something else rather than God’s way. How hard it is to keep focused in our mind and hearts!!
In the first reading, the Lord says, I will raise up a prophet… I will put my words into his mouth… so that we can listen to God, straight from the Lord. He does this through the ages guiding his people and ultimately he sends the Word himself: Jesus Christ – surely the people will listen to Him! He is one that speaks and teaches with authority – the people witnessed it when he was casting out demons in today’s Gospel: What is this? … He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him. When the Word of God speaks, all of creation listens. When one listens, they do it immediately – because they have nothing to distract them or hold them back.
When St. Paul writes to the Corinthians in the second reading that is his intention. People would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that he is advocating some sort of marriage agenda, that everyone should be single or to stay single. But rather he is trying to draw the distinction between these vocations and how important – rather critical – it is to adhere to the Lord without distraction. Everyone is called to love the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our might. In the married life, what would your spouse say if you told him or her that you loved another more than him or her? How can anyone, even your own children, trump or compete with your spouse for love? It must be absolute, uncompromisingly, and unconditionally so. Anything else is regarded as what? Infidelity. Yet as an ideal married couple, God is and should be the only one that should be loved more than your spouse. Are ya’ll married couples okay with that? That you can love God more than your spouse? I hope so, otherwise we need to reexamine what marriage is all about. That is what St. Paul is writing for – the anxiety to please should not be for your spouse, but for God. Taking it another way: If the amount of love that you share with your spouse is already indescribably beyond words, imagine how much more you are called to love the Lord!! As a celibate, seeing this kind of love makes me filled with joy.
There is much to be accomplished in our lives, but there is nothing more important than listening to the Word of God in our daily life and through the scriptures. We come today to the altar of the Lord bringing our distractions, our sins, and our burdens. To have that single-mindedness in your heart to listening to His Divine Promptings in our daily lives will enrich and enliven everything we do. Young couples in a new relationship can really relate to this: throughout the day you’ll be doing some little menial thing and then suddenly think of your new boyfriend or girlfriend and you just get all excited and happy – some girls just turn into a pile of mush. Imagine the simplest things as brushing your teeth, taking out the trash, or driving around town being permeated with God’s presence, you suddenly think of him: encouraging you and strengthening you, chiding you, and pushing you to be even more loveable in His eyes. Strive to be in that kind of relationship with the Lord, He is always there, always present. I feel that incredible joy every time I think about how much He loves me and how much He desires me to be the best person He created me to be. Therefore, when I pray that Psalm 95 every morning, it is not condemnation for me – but rather it is an opportunity to listen to Him and look to Him to guide my day, making my love for Him ever stronger and ever beautiful. I do not need Psalm 23 because He has already led me to green pastures and restful waters. I already know that He is my Shepherd, that He will provide for me, and that I shall never be wanting.
