For many years, I was the reader on Thursdays at my parish’s 7:00 Mass. From time to time the day’s psalm was Psalm 95, and every time it popped up in the liturgical calendar, I took the words to heart.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice: Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the desert. There your ancestors tested me; they tried me though they had seen my works. Forty years I loathed that generation; I said, ‘This people’s heart goes astray; they do not know my ways.’ Therefore I swore in my anger: ‘They shall never enter my rest.’
What challenging words! When I was preparing to recite them before the congregation, I always, and prayerfully, reflected on the hardness of my own heart. Was my life pleasing to the Lord, or was I like so many in the world, constantly trying the God’s patience and mercy by stubbornly living life on our terms, rather than His?
My friends, life goes by in a flash. We are here one day, and gone the next. Where is God in your life right now? Are you making an attempt to hear God’s voice, and what does your response look like?
My prayer for you today is that you take a pause, and examine the spiritual health of your heart. Has your heart gone astray? Did you know that heart disease is the number one killer of adults in the United States today? I think many also have spiritual heart disease, and that diagnosis, my friends, has eternal consequences.
Let today be the day that you begin making those changes necessary to protect and strengthen your heart, both physically and spiritually. Let This Be The Day!
