Mt 15,1-2.10-14

Stand in God’s presence. God is present here and now, looking upon you with love.

Ask for the Grace: I will beg God our Lord that all my intentions and actions may be directed purely to the praise and service of His Divine Majesty.

Fixing a place, a picture for meditation: see the man (you can see yourself), notice his eyes, mouth, ears, hands … different parts of the body

Ask for the fruit of meditation: for the grace of being mindful in life

1. Hear and understand.

These are the words of Jesus. Hear and understand does not always seem the same. You can listen and interpret the words you hear by yourself, or not hear what the other person is saying at all. We hear through our filters, our beliefs, our previous experiences, through the emotions we feel at the moment. Understanding requires us to take a distance from ourselves, to go out to the other, to look at reality through his eyes.

How do I listen to and understand God, other people, myself?

2. what comes out of the mouth is what defiles one

In the next part of the pericope, Jesus draws our attention to our speech, language, gestures, facial expressions, the whole-body posture, i.e. non-verbal speech. We do not have to show our anger with a raised tone, sometimes a sharp look is enough. Likewise, we can show sympathy with a gentle look and cannot say a word. How do I say, what comes out of my mouth? It is also important to ask yourself the question: why am I saying something, what do I want to get?

3. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.

It can be said that Jesus refers to another of our sense – sight. This sentence is not about a disease of blindness, but rather about a blindness that prevents you from seeing reality as it is. Our thoughts can go to the future, to the past, our imagination can give us thousands of images, dialogues that have nothing to do with what the present moment brings. We often see how we want to see, perhaps we have been taught to see. Jesus says that the blind falls into the pit, and he may fall, because he simply does not notice it, because of his thought patterns, old and perhaps now unnecessary beliefs. Verify what influences your perception of reality, the other person, yourself. What makes you blind?

4. Exercise

I invite you to look around you, in the place where you are: what you see (try not to interpret, i.e. not to give value to the things you notice in the style of: nice, ugly ..), what you hear now, what you are touching (e.g. the armchair on which you are sitting). Or you can go for a walk and notice everything you meet. Be careful as you can.

Meditation: St Ignatius encourages in The Spiritual Exercises No. 2 … Because not so much knowledge, but internal feeling and the taste of things please and saturate the soul, that is, we stay where we feel interior movement … and nervously do not try to go on.

The final conversation: Spend a little time at the end, being with God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit….as you would with a good friend: sometimes talking, sometimes listening, sometimes being together in silence. Speak to God about your feelings. Remember that times when ‘nothing is happening’ can also be significant. When you’re ready, end your prayer by saying thank you or using words that are familiar,such as the Lord’s Prayer (Our Father)–whichever feels right and comfortable. (The Spiritual Exercises No.54)