‘Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea …’

These words, from our Old Testament reading, echo words of Psalm 95: ‘O that today you would hearken to his voice! Harden not your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work’.

There is a wistfulness in these words, recalling for us the infinite compassion of the Lord. Today, let us seek earnestly to listen deeply to the voice of the Lord, speaking at all times in our hearts, if only we have ears to hear. May God bless you this day, and be very close to you.