Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent

(Daniel 3:25.34-43; Matthew 18:21-35)

In his message for the World Day of Peace in 2002, Pope St. John Paul II reflected on the 9-11 terrorist attacks.  He repeated the proverb that without justice, there is no peace.  He also made the insight that without forgiveness there is no justice.  People have to give up their claims for past injuries if they ever expect to have right relationships with others.  He was not advocating that nations or individuals ignore past grievances.  But he did mean that feeling God’s love, the person or state can express love for the offender. This love may be called mercy.

Both readings today show the need for mercy.  The young man praying in the furnace asks for God’s mercy on his people who calls disobedient.  God will save the youth from the furnace and bring his people back to the land of the ancestors.  The parable of Jesus is stunning in its contrast.  The original debtor is said to owe “a huge amount.”  One should think in terms of ten digits of dollars.  The second debtor owes “a much smaller amount,” perhaps a few hundred dollars.  Yet the first debtor cannot forgive him.  There will never be justice in that first debtor’s life, much less peace.

We can forgive others when we remember how much love God has for us.  We need not assess our sins to see how much we have been forgiven.  Out of love God gives us life, friends, work, and rest.  For these reasons we should be ready to forgive. 

Monday, March 8, 2021

 Monday of the Third Week of Lent

 (II Kings 5:1-15; Luke 4:24-30)

 The matriarch of an aristocratic British family utters a telling quip when she hears that her son has converted to Catholicism.  “You mean,” she says, “that he will go to church with the help.”  At the time most people went to church on Sunday.  In England the aristocracy went to the Anglican church and their Irish servants to the Catholic church.  If one is careful not to allow this story lead to triumphalism, it gives an insight into today’s first reading.

The cure of Naaman, the army general, shows how poor servants often have a much livelier faith than their rich overlords.  An Israeli girl servant tells her mistress to solicit help from God’s prophet in Israel.  In contrast, the king of Israel is lost when asked to relieve the Aramean general’s skin disease.  Later the general’s servants express implicit faith in God when they tell him not to fuss but obey the prophet’s simple directive. 

Today’s gospel, however, shows that even simple people can be wrong about God.  The inhabitants of Nazareth reject Jesus’ prophesizing on the grounds that they know him to be like them.  Many today likewise see Jesus simply as a gifted human while rejecting the claim that he is the Son of God.  Rich or poor, having a doctorate or a high school education, we are wise to accept Jesus as our Lord.  Following his directives, our sins are cleansed.  Trusting in his promises, we follow the way to eternal life.

Sunday, March 7, 2021

 Third Sunday of Lent

(Exodus 20:1-17; I Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25)

What is the Law to a Jew?  One Jewish scholar calls it “a yoke that becomes a tree of life.”  It is a demanding teacher from whom we could never draw an “A.”  Nevertheless, this teacher shows us not only how to think but how to live.  Jesus, being a devout Jew, loved the Law and lived it every moment of his life.

In today’s gospel Jesus acts on the Law’s first tenet.  He finds the temple’s vendors and money changers making gods out of their businesses.  Being Son of God with special rights in God’s house, he throws the infidels out.  The act bursts open the Jewish social structure.  “By what authority does he act as the Temple police?” the people would wonder. The priests see it as sheer insolence. “Who is he to determine right and wrong in the temple?” they would rage.  Since they cannot tolerate his audacity, they will plot to have him executed.

How should we think of Jesus’ zeal?  Uncompromising with the temple merchants, he would find our grasping for power, pleasure, fame, or fortune similarly intolerable.  He asks us to put such pursuits away and give him our attention.  He promises us that we will find God, our Father also, in doing his will.  That is, we are to live jot and tittle the Ten Commandments at the heart of the Law.  Also, we are to love others as much as we love ourselves.

Friday

 

Friday of the Second Week of Lent

 

(Genesis 37:3-4.12-13a.17b-28a; Matthew 21:33-43.45-46)

 

Mark Twain secured fame as a humorist.  Few in his time or any could match his insight and wit.  However, he was no humanist. He did not believe that humans are basically decent people.  Quite the contrary, he found them as conniving for their own comfort of mind.  If all humans acted like Joseph’s brothers in the first reading or the tenants of today’s gospel parable, Twain’s view would be judged as correct.

The brothers have no patience with Joseph, their father’s favorite son.  They universally dislike him although not all favor killing him.  In any case, they mean him harm when they sell him to the Ishmaelites.  The tenants of Jesus’ parable are even more reprehensible.  They kill the son of the landowner, who stands for the Son of God.  In strict justice, they deserve execution.

Despite frequent examples of hard-heartedness and full treachery, we know that humans are not completely corrupt.  In fact, humans can become merciful and loving.  For this reason we seek renewal in the season of Lent.  We endeavor to be like Christ.  He not only taught us to help others but also who died to save us from oblivion at death.

Thursday, March 4, 2021

 Thursday of the First Second Week of Lent

(Jeremiah 17;5-10; Luke 16: 19-31)

In 2009 Pope Benedict wrote his only social encyclical.  World markets were reeling from the great economic downturn of the year before.  Benedict chided governments and large financial institutions for their lack of oversight during the speculations of the years prior to the recession.  He wrote that the economy must implement the “principle of gratuitousness” in order to be just.  Gratuitousness recognizes that there are no self-made men or women.  Everyone has received resources to grow and achieve.  Reception of benefits from others implies return of those benefits so that other people in time may prosper as well.  The rich man in Jesus’ parable lacks at least a full sense of gratuitousness.

The rich man tragically ignores the beggar at his door.  His concern about his brothers at the end of the parable cannot make up for this fault.  He should have realized that he had received assistance from other people, not to mention essential gifts from God, to accumulate his wealth.  Jesus is warning the Pharisees, who themselves are said to be “lovers of money,” not to be so blind.  They should practice gratuitousness by having compassion on the poor in their midst.

During Lent we should be actively looking for people to help.  It is a time of mercy.  God is merciful to us when we ask that our sins be forgiven.  We should be merciful to others in turn.  We forgive their offenses against us and show compassion on the needy.