Listening to God: Homily for Thursday, March 27, 2025

Today’s first reading is from the prophet Jeremiah. The responsorial psalm is Psalm 95. Both remind us of the importance of listening to God. Readings for today.

Listening to God

A little while ago, Fr. Patrick reminded us of the little boy who was pleading with his mother, Linda, for an extra cookie, I think, or something. And the little boy kept saying, “Listen, listen, Linda, listen.” Now, if you’re interested, it’s not that hard to Google a few details about that and find out that the boy now is in high school and his mother makes a lot of money on Instagram making blogs and things like that.

But that was the first image that came to mind when I heard the first reading today. Because we are so often like that little boy. We say to God, “God, listen, listen,” because we want our own way. We don’t really want to hear God.

As a matter of fact, the Our Father is a most dangerous prayer because we say, “God, thy will be done.” And if we’re going to get really dramatic about the whole thing, God’s will that Jesus would give his life on the cross for our salvation. So, surrendering to the will of God is not always an easy thing to do. And as a matter of fact, it would be completely impossible were it not for God’s grace.

Poor Jeremiah had not such a successful trend as a prophet. If by successful we mean that people heard everything he said and said, “Oh yes, what were we thinking?” Of course you’re right, Jeremiah. Because that wasn’t the case at all. They didn’t listen to Jeremiah. They treated him poorly. But in the midst of all of this, Jeremiah remained faithful.

Even at the very end, when he was exiled to Egypt with those that were the cripples and the lame, the people that it did not make much sense to have them go as far as the Babylonian exile.

Think of them, this people, in the first reading. Faithfulness. The word itself has disappeared. And if we think about listening to God, then one of the things that should become obvious to us is that if we believe that God is God, if we believe that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, but most importantly all-loving, then why wouldn’t we listen to God? Because even if God asks us to do something that seems to us to be challenging, God gives us the grace to do it.

God gives us the help we need to accomplish what it is that God wants us to do. But we know it’s hard sometimes to listen. That little boy wanted the cookie. It changed every way in which he saw the world. He wasn’t getting a cookie because it would spoil his dinner, but that didn’t matter. He wanted the cookie.

In our own lives, sometimes that’s the way sin can be too. God explains to us why we shouldn’t do something that’s sinful, but like that little boy, we keep saying to God, “Listen! Listen!” And we commit the sin because it seems good to us. It seems like the right thing to do to us. This season of Lent is a time really where we look upon and evaluate our relationship with God, and really at the core of it is what it is that we are about during this season of Lent. Do we listen to God or not?

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