Daily Gospel Reflection
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July 24, 2025
The disciples approached Jesus and said,
“Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?”
He said to them in reply,
“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.
Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:
You shall indeed hear but not understand,
you shall indeed look but never see.
Gross is the heart of this people,
they will hardly hear with their ears,
they have closed their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their hearts and be converted
and I heal them.
“But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
As a theology student, I often think about how stories can teach us more about God, human life, and the world than academic theology. A Flannery O’Connor story might show me fallenness and grace more poignantly than a treatise on original sin and redemption. My friend, who often talks to me about his ongoing experience with chronic illness, occasionally shares moments with me when he glimpses God’s presence in a special way. He’s described it as a feeling of being held in God’s hands. My friend’s stories teach me about what it means to say that God is with us.
Concepts make us think; stories make us pay attention. In the gospel today, Jesus explains that we need a special kind of attention, an openness, to understand his parables. More than illustrating his message, I think, Jesus is also urging us to open our eyes and ears to each other.
He might have only said, “Love your neighbor.” Instead, he also said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers…” From Jesus’s stories, we can draw up our own: where do we meet that person who needs our love, our care, our attention?
We may read about charity, but when we open our eyes to the world, we see the harsh, joyful, and full lives of the people God gives us to love. We may read about forgiveness, but when we open our ears to the world, we hear the explanation that helps us understand why someone perhaps wronged us, or perhaps how we were mistaken in our anger.
Opening ourselves to pay attention to others in a deeper way, we can begin to see beyond our preconceptions about another person or group of people, meet others in the fullness of their lives, and offer them the love of God that we have received.
Prayer
Almighty God, every day you reveal to us your presence and the depth of your love for us. Open our hearts to receive your mercy, our minds to understand your wisdom. Make us worthy vessels of your grace. Help us bring your love to a broken world. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Sharbel Makhloof was a monk from Lebanon who lived as a hermit at the end of the 19th century. He was known for his holiness during life, a reputation that spread after his death because of the miracles and supernatural signs attributed to his intercession.
He was born in 1828, high in the Lebanese mountains, and grew up tending his family’s flock of sheep. He placed an icon of Mary near the meadow where his sheep pastured and spent his days in prayer.
In 1851, he left his family and entered the monastery, where he began his formation as a monk. In time, he studied for ordination to the priesthood, and later petitioned the monastery to be allowed to live as a hermit, secluded from the monastery community. Permission was granted, and in 1875, Sharbel began living in solitude and silence and prayer, which was his life until he died of a stroke in 1898.
Months after his death and burial, his brother monks noticed a glow around his tomb. When they opened it, they found his body had not decayed and was flexible—it looked as though it was living. A blood-like fluid continually seeped from his body, which defied explanation. His tomb was reopened 50 years later, and was still found in this condition.
Many miracles have been attributed to St. Sharbel—hundreds—and he seemed to have been an encouragement for the American monk and writer, Thomas Merton. "Sharbel lived as a hermit in Lebanon—he was a Maronite,” Merton wrote. “He died. Everyone forgot about him. Fifty years later, his body was discovered incorrupt and in short time he worked over 600 miracles. He is my new companion. My road has taken a new turning. It seems to me that I have been asleep for 9 years—and before that I was dead."
At Sharbel’s beatification Mass in 1965, Pope Paul VI said, “May he make us understand, in a world largely fascinated by wealth and comfort, the paramount value of poverty, penance, and asceticism, to liberate the soul in its ascent to God.” He was canonized in 1977.
St. Sharbel, you were the holy monk from Lebanon who worked wonders after your death—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Sharbel Makhloof is in the public domain. Last accessed March 20, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
