From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks…
What happens if we remain in the presence of the Lord?
The Book of Sirach offers a multitude of advice on how to remain true to the Lord’s presence in our lives, with a particular focus on speech. What you have to say reveals what you are thinking, the bent of your mind, Sirach says, so we must listen carefully to see what another’s speech reveals about them, and be very careful about how we speak ourselves. Ultimately, Sirach suggests, if we remain close to the Lord and the Lord remains close to us, then our speech will reveal that truth. Indeed, we will be like the palm tree or the cedar of Lebanon mentioned in Psalm 92: if we are planted in the house of the Lord, we will flourish, bearing good fruit!
Jesus is similarly full of advice for his disciples in Luke’s Gospel, particularly around the act of discernment. To discern rightly what is good and what is bad takes humility, and a willingness to see one’s own faults clearly before remarking on those of our brother. Remove the wooden beam from your eye first, Jesus says, then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye. Again, we are all capable of bearing good fruit, and we shall do so long as we remain close to the Lord and allow him to remain close to us, for when the Lord is with us, our hearts are full, and from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.
In the end, as Paul tells the Corinthians, death is swallowed up in victory. Like Jesus, transformed by the action of God in the resurrection, we can be transformed from corruptible to incorruptible beings, by the power of God’s love. This isn’t something we can achieve on our own; only God can transform our mortal bodies into immortal ones, and he will do so, so long as we remain firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord.
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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