The Mind Gets In The Way

The mind gets in the way. This seems like an odd thing to say. When examining the history of the Church, we find that it has been home to many highly learned saints. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Pius X, and Saint John Paul II are but a few examples of such learned men. These were brilliant men who had an intense love and devotion for our Lord. Intelligence is a gift from God, but it is a gift that can be misused. It can draw us away from God if we let it.

Gospel - Matthew 11:25-27

At that time Jesus exclaimed:

"I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,

for although you have hidden these things

from the wise and the learned

you have revealed them to the childlike.

Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father.

No one knows the Son except the Father,

and no one knows the Father except the Son

and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him."

Scriptural Analysis

The disciples are privileged to hear Jesus address his Father in prayer. In Matthew’s Gospel, this is a rare occurrence happening only twice more in the text: at the Garden of Gethsemane as well as when he hands his life over on the cross.

This prayer occurs in the larger context of Jesus being rejected by Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. Yet still other cities received him, and that alone was sufficient for Jesus to praise his Father. This prayer would likely have been in Aramaic, and so Jesus would have addressed his Father as ‘Abba’. The use of this term implies an intimacy with God, akin to that of a child with their parents. Using the title is not new, as God has been referred to as the father of Israel: “Is not he your father, who created you?” (Deuteronomy 32:6). Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that Jews did not regularly address God as Father in either public or private prayer. However, Jesus almost always refers to God as Father.

Jesus’s prayer takes the form of a Jewish prayer of thanksgiving. Jesus praises God for the favors he has bestowed upon his people. Specifically, he praises God for Jesus’ identity as the one who speaks for the Father. This mystery has been hidden from the learned and wise of the time, but it has been revealed to the followers of Jesus, whose openness to accepting it shows them to be childlike in their receptivity to the Gospel. These have come to know more about Jesus than the religious scholars who oppose him. The willingness of the disciples to believe has nothing to do with their intelligence level, but rather it is a gift of grace that comes from God.

The final line of this prayer can be considered revelatory. Jesus states that all things have been given over to him by the Father. He does not explain what this means exactly, but we can summarize, based on what has transpired in Matthew’s Gospel up to this point, that it refers to the divine authority Jesus wielded on earth. He has a teaching authority greater than that of Moses and a spiritual authority great enough to forgive sins. More than that. Jesus reveals the nature of the relationship between the Father and the Son. While Jesus invites us to call God our Father, only Jesus truly knows the Father. The disciples come to know the Father through the Son by the grace of divine revelation. If the Father and the Son had not willed it, this relationship would have remained hidden from humanity.

Daily Application

The mind is a fantastic gift from God. It has enabled humanity to gain a deeper understanding of the world around it. It has allowed us to create beautiful music, design impressive cathedrals, and write delightful literature. Yet this same mind can also be put to use for evil purposes. It has developed weapons of mass destruction. It has plotted genocides against entire races of humanity. It has rationalized the evil that is abortion.

The same mind caused the majority of the religious leaders during Jesus’s time to fail to understand his identity or his mission. Even though they knew the scriptures better than anyone else, they did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. This is because they had become so preoccupied with their position of authority and prestige that they saw Jesus as a threat to it, and their minds could not overcome this perception to see their Lord in their midst.

This is why Jesus says that the childlike have come to know who he is. Note that he does not say ‘childish.’ Jesus is not referring to those who behave like children. Rather, the childlike are those who have not lost their ability to see the great mystery that is before them. They can see Jesus in their midst and come to believe. Their minds do not get in the way.

It becomes very easy for us to rationalize away Jesus. Not because there is no desire to know God, but because once we acknowledge what we already innately know, that Jesus is Lord, we must also examine our lives and make changes. The religious leaders of Jesus’s time did not want to change, so they rationalized away Jesus. We often don’t want to change our lives, so we rationalize away God or twist his words and teachings to accommodate the way we want to live our lives.

The mind gets in the way. It causes us not to accept what we see before our very eyes, what our heart tells us is true. While the mind is a beautiful gift from God, it is a gift that must be used to serve Him. We must strive to maintain that childlike perspective that accepts as true what is seen and experienced, rather than explaining it away. God is in our midst. Let us ask for the grace to recognize him always.