Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

(Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 6:7-15)

Today’s famous passage from Second Isaiah assures that God’s word is efficacious.  It always achieves its purpose.  As God is altogether good, His word only brings about benefits.

In the gospel, Jesus tells his disciples to pray for forgiveness of their sins.  Being God with power to effect what he wills, Jesus is assuring them that their guilt will be abolished.  However, he makes one proviso.  Sins will be forgiven on request as long as the sinners involved willingly forgive their offenders.

We long to be forgiven for mistakes we have made and for full-blown sins that we have committed.  There is no need to fret.  All that is necessary is to ask for pardon and to show willingness to forgive others.  We still may not receive the desired forgiveness from other humans.  But God’s forgiveness, which counts the most, is guaranteed.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

(Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 6:7-15)

In the Old Testament the ear takes precedence over the eye.  God frequently talks to His people at least through the prophets.  But only once does He show himself in full theophany.  In today’s first reading God Himself emphasizes the efficacy of His word.  He says that it always achieves His purpose.

The gospel makes the word of God Jesus’ disciples’ own word.  Jesus, God incarnate, teaches his followers how to pray with an emphasis on forgiveness.  The Father will forgive those who forgive the offenses of others.

Forgiveness requires humility.  When we forgive, we give up the claims we have against our offenders.  Our pride can keep this from happening.  However, hearing Jesus’ guarantee of our own forgiveness, we cannot afford not to forgive.

 Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

 (Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 6:7-15)

 A cartoon a couple of years ago showed two drivers after a fender-bender.  One says to the other, “My lawyer will contact you tomorrow.”  This is the way many people think today.  When offended, they first and foremost seek monetary redress through the legal system.  Today’s readings teach us that getting back at others is not God’s way.

 The passage from Isaiah’s is taken from the end of the second of three sections of the book.  The prophet is consoling the exiled captives in Babylon.  He has told them that they have suffered enough for their infidelity.  He has also assured them that God does not hold grudges.  Indeed, Isaiah makes clear that God takes delight in forgiving.  Jesus similarly teaches of his Father’s willingness to forgive.  However, he insists that God will forgive only those who are willing to forgive others.  He is saying that humans have to adopt God’s ways if they are going to receive God’s mercy.

 It’s tragic how wars are continually refought because peoples do not want to forgive.  Many Arabs live with resentment for Jews, and many Jews live so with Arabs.  The same is true of Indians and Pakistanis.  In the United States African Americans are demanding reparations while white Americans hold on to prejudices and memories of troubles.  These are not God’s ways.  If people want to be truly free, they should let go of these kinds of demands. They need to forgive others’ their offenses to receive God’s forgiveness for their own.

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

 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. 

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

 

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

(Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 6:7-15)

It is said that words make people human.  Other animals can think although not with much sophistication.  They even communicate in different ways.  But they do not seem to be able to form meaningful words.  Words not only have power to move others.  They have some sway with God as well.  At least, Jesus in today’s gospel prescribes certain words to solicit the Father’s attention.

The Our Father is the preeminent prayer of Christians because it was taught by Jesus himself.  It must be efficacious because in the first reading God declares that His word will not return to Him void.  When we own it by living it, we will receive the Father’s care.

A couple was praying for their daughter who had developed a blood disease.  They had lost one daughter to cancer many years before and feared losing another.  They prayed for their daughter and asked friends to pray as well.  A week or so ago, they received news that the bone marrow transplant their ailing daughter received was successful.  It may not be a saint-making miracle, but the couple is sure that God master-minded the healing, 

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

(Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 6:7-15)

Certainly the most confessed sin among men is viewing pornography.  Many cannot control themselves even though the sin involves a manual action.  Some say pornography is a victimless crime, but that is patently false.  It involves numerous people in the smut industry.  It also affects the relationship of a man with his wife or future wife.  Most of all it distorts the man’s brain which will seek ever more outrageous satisfaction.  The readings today suggest what might be done to overcome this vice.

Isaiah tells of the effectiveness of God’s word.  Dabar, Hebrew for word, created the universe.  It certainly can liberate those who feel bound up by a particular sin.  In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus shows his disciples how to ask directly on behalf of their needs.  Troubled by the sin of lust, men will ask to be delivered from the evil.  They will pray it often especially when handling their telephone or computer.

We would like an egalitarian society where all people live together in peace.  If that is ever to become even a near reality, we must tame our covetous impulses.  We will accomplish this only by beseeching God’s life-giving word in prayer.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

(Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 6:7-15)

Today’s first reading is taken from the end of the second part of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah.  It shows God about to act on behalf of His people mired in Babylon.  No more will they have to bear insults and prejudice from their overlords.  God will send them home to Jerusalem with the utterance of His word. 

In the gospel Jesus assures his disciples that the Father is ready to assist them as well.  Their prayers do not inform God of their needs nor catalyze Him to act.  Rather their prayers prepare them to receive humbly what God is about to give.  In 2010 thirty-four Chilean miners were trapped after an underground explosion.  They were of different faiths and no faith, but they began to pray together.  “We are not the best of men, Lord,” they prayed, “but have mercy on us anyway.”  All the miners survived the ordeal.

Lent is time to relearn how to pray.  We come to God humbly knowing that He can help us in our need.  We look to Him as our loving Father ready to give us what we request.  And we pray diligently, not allowing our minds to wander or our hopes to wane.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

(Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 6:7-15)

Most parents teach their children manners by withholding something that the children want until they utter the correct word. We all know the dialogue. “You want a piece of cake?” the parent tells the child, “Then what do you say?” When the child responds correctly and the cake is passed, the parent will finish the lesson: “Now what do you say?” It does not seem off the mark to say that Jesus gives his disciples a similar lesson in today’s gospel.

But before going to the gospel, we should note what the first reading proclaims. Isaiah assures us that every word proceeding from the mouth of God is efficacious. Therefore, we can trust not only what Jesus will tell us but also that the prayer he teaches will effect the requests it makes. Jesus says that we are to ask our Father in heaven to make manifest on earth his will. Further, he prepares us to participate in the manifestation by committing ourselves to forgive the wrongs others do to us.

But, then, why don’t we see the world at peace and ourselves free from the clutches of evil? Perhaps it is because we are too anxious. It is happening, however, although until the coming of Jesus the Kingdom of God on earth will always be in process. We can perhaps glimpse it as we become less spiteful when wronged and as nations decide to spend more on education and health and less on arms.