Today we are in the sixteenth week of Ordinary Time, and the Church gives us an image so stark it stops you cold: broken cisterns that hold no water. Jeremiah 2 sets this before us, and Jesus in Matthew 13 answers the question it raises. The thread running through today’s readings is about seeing what is right in front of you and the ease with which we turn away from the one source that satisfies.
What today’s readings give us
The First Reading comes from Jeremiah 2, early in the prophet’s career when Judah is turning from the God who brought them out of Egypt. The image Jeremiah uses is domestic and devastating: a people who have abandoned a spring of living water to dig out cisterns that crack and leak. The Responsorial Psalm (36) responds with the opposite picture: God’s love as a fountain, his light as the source in which we see light. The Gospel takes us to Matthew 13, where the disciples ask why Jesus teaches in parables. His answer is about hearts that have grown dull, ears that will not hear, eyes that will not see.
The line worth carrying with you
Jeremiah gives us the key verse: “Two evils have my people done: they have forsaken me, the source of living waters; They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water.” The prophet is not describing atheism. He is describing the religious person who stays religious but switches sources. The people still worship, still sacrifice, still go through motions. They have simply decided to draw from wells they dug themselves, wells that looked promising and turned out to be empty.
Jesus in Matthew 13 tells us why this happens. The parables are not riddles meant to confuse. They are gifts offered to those willing to see. “Blessed are your eyes, because they see,” he tells the disciples. The difference between those who see the kingdom and those who miss it is not intelligence. It is whether you are still drinking from the spring or whether you have wandered off to your own cistern, convinced it will fill.
For today
Before bed tonight, ask yourself one question: what cistern am I digging? What substitute source have I been drawing from this week, expecting it to do what only God does? Name it plainly. Then read Jeremiah 2:13 slowly once, out loud if you are alone. Let the image of cracked pottery sit with you in the quiet.
Today’s full readings are at USCCB.
