“Explain to us the parable”

THAT’S what the apostles would often ask Christ after he

preached to a crowd in parables. They could not get a full

understanding of what Christ was trying to convey to the people, and

so they would just ask him that.

            Christ, of course, would explain and only then would the

apostles get a good understanding. They were privileged to get that

explanation because not all had that privilege.

            This was dramatized, for example, in Matthew 13,10-16.

“The disciples came to him and asked, ‘Why do you speak to the people

in parables?’

            “He replied, ‘Because the knowledge of the secrets of the

kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.  Whoever has

will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not

have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak

to them in parables.

            “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do

not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

            “’You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you

will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has

become calloused. They hardly hear with their ears, and they have

closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with

their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal

them.’

            “But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears

because they hear. For truly I tell 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.”

            This asking for explanation from Christ about things we do

not quite understand can also be done today if we only do our part of

really going to Christ through our prayer and our continuing

formation. We need to pray and to study. These should be together, and

never one without the other.

            Our prayer and study will enable us to see God in the many

things that confront us today. They will enable us to see his will and

ways, the reason and the purpose of the many mysteries in our life.

            We should realize that our formation of prayer and study

is coterminous with life itself, which will always give us lessons.

And that’s because the basics and essentials, the absolute, old and

the permanent truths, which we may already know, will always have to

cope and somehow need to get enriched by the incidentals in life, by

the relative, innovative and changing things.

            In his second letter, St. Peter urges us to go on with our

formation: “Strive diligently to supply your faith with virtue, your

virtue with knowledge, your knowledge with self-control, your

self-control with patience, your patience with piety, your piety with

fraternal love, your fraternal love with charity.” (1,5-7)

            And as we all know, charity is a never-ending affair, ever

making new demands on us, and introducing us to more aspects,

dimensions and challenges in life. It will always push us to do more,

to give more, to be more.

            We should always be asking Christ to explain to us the

many parables and paradoxes in our life. We should never feel that we

already have enough formation because we may have acquired some

academic attainment and professional accomplishments. That certainly

is a wrong move. In fact, we should cultivate the hunger for

continuing formation, knowing that many factors connive to put it to a

halt.

            Number one danger is pride, the feeling that we are

already ok because we know quite a lot to get by in life and even with

some assurance of earthly success and prosperity. We can think, with

some pieces of evidence to boot, that we are the leader of the pack,

or at least are ahead of many others.