Thursday of the Third Week of Lent
(Jeremiah7:23-28; Luke 11:14-23)
For a long, long time people have known that smoking cigarettes is harmful. Many years ago the older generation would discourage the practice by telling its youth that smoking stunted growth. When scientists linked cancer to smoking, a warning was put on cigarette packages saying the Surgeon General advises that use of the product is detrimental to health. Still people have persisted in the vice, in some cases to this very day. The readings today indicate a similar hard-headedness regarding reckless activity.
Jeremiah sounds resigned to the intransigence of the people’s inclination toward evil. Speaking on behalf of the Lord, he says that the people never have adopted God’s ways and now act worse then ever. Even Jesus is not able to convert everyone to righteous ways. The people dismiss him with the absurd charge that he casts out demons because he is one.
The situation, however, is not hopeless. Under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we can reject evil and learn to do good. Lent points us in the right direction and gives us impetus to move. Then, developing virtue by daily practice of what is true, we recognize in Jesus not just our teacher but our rescuer in moments of weakness.
