There are many things we do out of habit – it is our custom to perform this or that action.
We are so used to behaving in a certain way that we do those things somehow without thinking much about it.

But there are other situations when it is not the case, we hesitate, we reflect before taking a course of action.
We ponder, we look at this and that other aspect of a gesture, a response, a decision.
If asked about it, we may reply that we need to understand what is involved.
We need to make sense of something.

This need to understand lies deep within us.
We search for meaning, we try to discover the sense of what something is about,
what WE are about, in fact.

This came to me as I read the 1^st reading of this Sunday (Ne.8:2-6,8-10).
There we hear of the Jews gathered to listen to God’s message to them in the Law.
We are told:

“Ezra read from the Law of God, translating and giving the sense,
so that the people understood what was read.”
 
Receiving the understanding of the word of God – this is what we are meant to do. 
Not only listening, not solely hearing, not purely accepting as a matter of fact.
But understanding, deepening, making our own God’s message.

Nothing less will satisfy our need for making sense –
making sense of life, of our human existence, of… God himself!
God: what he is, what he wants to be for each one of us…

Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/3e-dimanche-de-lannee-c-2/

Source: Image: Pixabay