Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

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

A pastor had an idea to raise funds for his parish life center.  He would give any parishioner ten dollars for a project so that they could give it back with another ten dollars.  Putting responsible people’s entrepreneurial minds to work can produce remarkable results.  Needless to say, the parish life center was built.  In today’s first reading we hear how God puts His word to work with wonderful results.

The reading comes from the second part of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, often called Deutero-Isaiah.  This book tells of the people Israel suffering in Babylon and their liberation through Cyrus of Persia.  However, the one God is the hero of the work.  He directs all action through His efficacious word.  Today’s passage describes that word as rain from heaven producing abundant fruit.

We should never doubt God’s word and should pray daily to see it change our lives.  We will find that God acts in our best interests.  Whether or not we receive exactly what we seek, God will share with us His Holy Spirit.  This gift more than compensates for anything that we find wanting.

Monday, March 6, 2017

Monday of the First Week of Lent

(Leviticus 19:1-2.11-18; Matthew 25:31-46)

Mother Teresa often called the poor “Jesus in disguise.”  Her reason for doing so can be found in today’s gospel.  Jesus himself identifies with the hungry, the sick, and the imprisoned.  The poor certainly suffer a disproportionate incidence of these conditions.

But often in economically advanced societies the poor are well overweight.  They eat too much of the wrong foods, and they do not get enough exercise.  What can be done for them?  Certainly people can model healthy eating and exercise habits and also encourage the poor to follow them.  Advertising paid with public funds might also remind people of a healthy lifestyle.  Public policy that provide opportunities for the poor to improve their living habits may be crafted as well.

Above all, we must identify with the poor.  We not only have to see them as like Jesus but as our brothers and sisters.  Then with both our physical and creative resources engaged, we will work out ways that will remove them from jeopardy.  In these ways we will find ourselves called into the Father’s kingdom.

Friday, March 3, 2017

Friday after Ash Wednesday

(Isaiah 58:1-9a; Matthew 9:14-15)

Remember when our mothers told us to eat our food because there were children in China going hungry?  Comedians make fun of the logic, but there is subtle connection between the two.  It parallels the reasoning behind the lesson about fasting in the first reading today.

Isaiah chastises the people for fasting while ignoring the needy.  Fasting – experiencing voluntary hunger --should make us conscious of those without food to eat so that we might help them.  Our mothers admonished us to finish our dinner with a similar end in mind.  They wanted us to be grateful for the food we have so that we might help those with little.

Food is a good although we sometimes distort its value by eating too much.  In any case food is not the greatest good.  God is.  To recognize God as such we fast during Lent.  Because God commands us to do so, it would a travesty for us to fast from food and not assist the hungry.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

(Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Luke 9:22-25)

It is always interesting to see how people deny reality.  What is both conventional wisdom and the result of scientific experimentation can be not only ignored but refuted.  One such reality is the added value of lifestyle to a long, healthy life.  Scientific studies indicate that on the average diet and exercise contribute between sixty and seventy percent to longevity.  Yet some people insist that living ninety years or more is solely the product of “good genes.”  This denial is not worse than that regarding Moses’ prescription for a long life in today’s reading from Deuteronomy.

The Book of Deuteronomy was finally redacted after the Babylonian exile.  It was used to explain the ignominy of that bitter experience.  It supposedly foretells how the people could have chosen life in the land that God had given by obeying His commands.  Instead they followed crooked ways ignoring the poor and worshipping false gods.  Yet Deuteronomy does not end in hopelessness.  One of the book’s final chapters tells of the Lord’s eternal willingness to resurrect His fallen people.

We too have fallen – at least a little, at least sometimes.  We act in ways that are not like God’s as we know Him in Jesus Christ.  We cling to resentments and try to justify our mistakes.  We eat and drink to excess and curse at other drivers.  We need to take to heart the offer of life that God continually extends to us.  If we want to live, we have to make God’s ways ours.  For this reason we have the season of Lent.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Ash Wednesday

(Joel 2:12-18; II Corinthians 5:2—6:2; Matthew 6:1-16.16-18)

“Margaret, are you weeping…” Gerard Manley Hopkins begins one of his famous poems.  The author is about to contemplate death.  “It is the blight of man,” he says.  It is also our starting point in Lent.

Signs of deaths become evident as we grow old.  We lose our vigor, our beauty, and our memory.  The ashes put on our foreheads today confirm what seniors know with increasing alarm.  Our bodies will turn into dust.  We need to ask ourselves, “Am I living in accord with the hope I have for salvation from non-existence?”

The Church proposes the season of Lent to realign ourselves. Now is the time to make every effort to live so that we might share in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.  We pray to God for help.  We let go of distractions from our purpose.  And we assist the needy as our sure way of overcoming death’s blight.