Thursday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. Mt 7:24

Pope Benedict XVI once commented on this scripture verse: “The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money…But all this one day will pass away. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality…The realist is the one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent.” Later in his gospel St. Matthew writes further about the enduring power of the word: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mt 24:35).

Today’s gospel challenges us to examine the foundation of our faith. Is our spiritual life built on sand or on rock? Christ, the Word spoken by the Father, is the foundation stone of the Church and the Rock upon which we are to construct our lives. But how do we do this from a practical point of view? Our Benedictine heritage offers us the ancient practice of lectio divina—that slow, careful, pondering of the scriptures. Early Christian writers used the down-to-earth image of a cow chewing upon its cud. In a similar way, we chew upon a word or a phrase of the Word of God, memorize it, ponder it, and ingest it, allowing it to become a part of ourselves just as the grass becomes part of the cow. Practiced daily, lectio divina gradually transforms us into the image of Christ. We become that which we read! St. Paul summarizes this so beautifully in his letter to the Philippians: “Their minds are occupied with earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself” (Phil 3:19-21).

Reflection by Br. Michael Marcotte, OSB