“Whoever has ears ought to hear.” (Matthew 13:9)
Last Sunday we reflected on how our Lord has received all authority in heaven and on earth from His
Father to reveal His Father to those whom He chooses. We saw how He has chosen to share this authority
with His apostles to reveal Him as the only way to the Father. It is with the Father and the Son that we will
find the happiness every human soul seeks.
This Sunday He speaks to us as recipients of the proclamation of His words that reveal Him and the Father
to us. Our hearing is also essential. His authority to reveal the Father must be received freely with our
hearing of that revelation. He emphasises this with a simple phrase: “Whoever has ears ought to hear.”
Our Lord highlights for us that the revelation of His Father comes through Him and His apostles, and we
must be careful not to reject His authority that comes to us through His bishops in communion with the
Holy Father, the successor of Peter.
We cannot undermine our hearing and discernment and acceptance of their teachings about our Lord with
any of our own concerns and worries. We do not reject the bishops and the Pope because we feel we
know better and want to take matters into our own hands. To do this is to eject ourselves from the only
One who has the authority and power to save us and the world. Let us persevere in our listening and
obeying our Holy Father, and his brother bishops whom the Son has chosen to reveal Him. Let us continue
to sow the seeds of Christ’s teaching in communion with them and never apart from them. Let us pray for
the grace of Jesus’ own meekness and humility. He is the perfect listener and obedient Son of the Father.