Thursday, March 12, 2015

Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

(Jeremiah7:23-28; Luke 11:14-23)

The other day Pope Francis preached that worldliness transforms souls so that they lose consciousness of reality.  They no longer see other people as images of God worthy of respect but as object of exploitation.  This refusal to see, this blindness runs through both readings today.

Jeremiah speaks of the people’s diffidence to the will of God.  He says that God desires to bring them to happiness but they refuse to follow his lead.  The gospel echoes this faithlessness on the part of the people.  Jesus has cast out a demon – a sign that the reign of God has finally arrived.  But witnesses make excuses to withhold their belief in him.  Frustrated, Jesus draws a line in the sand.  “Whoever is not with me,” he says, “is against me.”

We pray that we have really made an option for Jesus.  Sometimes it is hard to tell because we know that the human person has a million ways to deceive herself.  Yet we know that the best prescription for making an authentic choice for Jesus is to imitate his ways – all of them from prayer in the early morning to serving others well after the sun goes down.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

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.