Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
(Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 6:7-15)
The words efficacious and effective have the same Latin root. But they do not have the same meaning. An instrument is effective if it has some positive result. It is efficacious if it produces fully what the agent desired. Today’s first reading describes the word of God as not just effective but efficacious. It produces the good which God intends.
In the gospel Jesus urges his followers to pray to the Father. They are to ask for the fullness of His Kingdom. When this occurs, war and violence will cease. Individuals and nations will reach their full potential. Everyone will have food to eat, schools in which to learn, and quality health care. Life will be more than tolerable; it will be joyful.
We keep praying the Our Father but do not yet experience the coming of the Kingdom in full. War wages in Ukraine. children lack nutrition in Haiti. Human rights are violated in Hong Kong. What is keeping the Kingdom away? We cannot say. But signs of the in-breaking of the Kingdom have appeared. East and West are cooperating in effort to curtail violence. Liberals and conservative are beginning to realize that virtue, not egotism, makes for the good life.
