Tuesday of the First Week in Lent 2020
The Way Out of the Hole We’re In
As we continue in this first week our Lenten journey, our informal pre-Easter retreat, it’s good to consider just where we are, or would be, without Jesus Christ and His Church. We start out our life in a kind of hole, or deep well, because of original sin. We cannot live the supernatural life that God made us for without being touched by Christ, healed by Christ, raised out of the hole by Christ. And the ordinary way out of the hole is to be baptized into Christ’s Body, the Church. Here we are healed of sin, nourished with the Eucharist, anointed for service and mission, and ultimately commended into the hands of the Father when we finish our earthly journey.
So we sing with the psalmist the comforting and energizing words, “this poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him from all his distress.” Moreover, we are challenged with the verse: “the Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and those who are crushed in spirit He saves.” I think even Christians, maybe especially Christians, often feel crushed in spirit. We come up with a good idea, even an idea to spread the Gospel, and we work at it and it seems to fail. So we are disappointed, crushed in spirit.
But Isaiah is correct when he says that just as the rain comes down from heaven in this late winter season, and waters the earth so that the bluebonnets and mountain laurel sprout and beautify the land, so that the crops rise from the earth and give food to the hungry, so any word of God’s will have an effect. I say bluebonnets and mountain laurels for a reason. Like many of us, the seeds of these two beautiful plants have a hard protective coat, waxy and tough. They are so protected because they grow in a region that experiences frequent drought. So when they fall into the earth it takes time for the seed coat to wear away. Then, when the rains do come, some of the seeds have thin coats that can allow water in to germinate the seed.
So if you act in this year to spread the word of God, either verbally or by social communication, you don’t know when that word will have an impact on the reader or listener. It might take months or years. It might even cause that person to ask for a priest as he or she is dying. Because God loves all His creatures, and wills that all should be saved. Let this gracious God work through your actions and prayers and fasting and almsgiving to spread His blessed word through all your days, to everyone you meet.
And, speaking of prayer, let’s not forget what I call the “all-purpose prayer,” the Lord’s prayer. Look at it as a model prayer, and use it daily. The Church structures the Our Father into almost every liturgical service, as well as the Holy Rosary.
It’s all purpose because there are four prayer types, praise, thanksgiving, repentance and petition. So we praise God when we hallow His name. We ask for our bread in thanks. We acknowledge our sinfulness and promise to forgive others debts as we are forgiven. And we ask for the greatest of benefits, to participate in the kingdom of God when we are no longer able to serve Him on earth.
We don’t pray to God to remedy some deficiency in His understanding of our needs. God knows what we need, and He sees through our desires to our true deficiencies. He knows the hole we are in much better than we know it ourselves. So the best part of the Lord’s prayer is the one Mary prayed at the Annunciation. She said to the angel–and therefore to God–“Be it done to me according to Thy will.” And we echo that when we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” How will God’s will be done on earth? By us.
So let’s pray that we know God’s will and have the virtue and grace to accomplish it, this day and every day. Thus we must listen for His word and be willing to carry out His purpose. No matter what.
