Closed Minds

Greetings on this the Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Readings: GAL 4:22-24, 26-27, 31–5:1; PS 113:1B-2, 3-4, 5A AND 6-7; LK 11:29-32
Notes: In today’s gospel portion Jesus derides the people challenging him as an Evil Generation (Closed Minds).

When we look at the positioning of this gospel encounter Jesus is deriding their refusal to listen and to see what the Lord has done for them. One of the great freedoms we have is the independence of the mind and the ability to think for oneself.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/traversing-the-inner-terrain/201907/the-closed-mind

Eschatology – we use the term not in the common secular understanding but in the context of the three basic questions of philosophy.

• Who am I?
• Why am I?
• What is my final end?

In respect to the Divine and the Eschatology of the Future:

• If you don’t pray, you’ll have poor judgment.
• If you don’t ask, you’ll have poor judgment.
• If you don’t think/contemplate, you’ll have poor judgment.

The evil is the refusal to use the naturally given ability to see, hear, think and question.

Let us set the stage by looking at the proximity of the comment.

Luke Chapter 11 subtitles

• Teaching Lord’s Prayer.
• Further Teaching on Prayer.
• The Answer to Prayer.
• Jesus and Beelzebul (accusation).
• The Return of the Unclean Spirit.
• True Blessedness.
• *The Demand for a Sign (Evil Generation).
• The Simile of Light.
• Denunciation of the Pharisees and Scholars of the Law.

If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own people drive them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that [I] drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

The queen of Sheba came to visit King Solomon to test his wisdom. After King Solomon explained everything she asked about, and there was nothing so obscure that the king could not explain it to her, she expressed joy at meeting him and the condition of the realm he governs and the state of the people’s welfare.

So great his wealth, all King Solomon’s drinking vessels were gold, and all the utensils in the house of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. There was no silver, for in Solomon’s time silver was reckoned as nothing.

The sign of Jonah is considered in two ways. First, the three days and nights in the belly of a fish prefigures the death and burial of Jesus (and Jonah as ‘spit out’ prefigures the resurrection – in general terms, of course). Second, the conversion of many to right living at the preaching of Jonah and the preaching of Jesus.

Open Your Mind to:

• Prayers, miracles and blessedness and paired with light and light burdens.
• Jesus presents the evidence.
• They reject the message.

First reading
Now this is an allegory.

It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the freeborn woman. The son of the slave woman was born naturally, the son of the freeborn through a promise.

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

Responsorial Psalm
Blessed be the name of the Lord forever.

Alleluia Verse
If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Gospel Portion
At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here.
At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.

Open your mind.

Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry