I'M NOT LISTENING!

It's a "bit" you see on sitcoms all the time: people not wanting to hear something will hold their hands over their ears and start singing to themselves, "La la la - I can't hear you! I'm not listening!"

In today's first reading (Acts 7:51-8:1a), this quasi-comic routine is followed up by the very first murder of a Christian.

Then they cried out with a loud voice,
and stopped their ears,
and ran upon him with one accord,
And cast him out of the city, and stoned him...

As is often the case, this Scripture finds resonance in our own lives in more than one way: in what is done to us and in what we often do to each other.

Just as the people did to Stephen, so now the world is doing to us: the opinion makers of this age not only close their ears and their minds to the teaching of Christ, but they fill the air and every kind of media with the most intense cacophony.

Moreover, the enemies of truth are throwing more and more obstacles against the free exercise of religion and honest expressions of faith.

We too can sometimes shut our ears and try to shout down our brothers and sisters with whom we may disagree on relatively trivial matters.

It is important for us to listen, to be respectful, and to foster an environment where the truth and love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be heard and embraced.