Daily Virtue Scripture Readings

This first Sunday of Lent brings forth the underlying essence of its intention in the reading from Psalm 51. The psalm’s title, Miserere: Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon, clarifies its purpose as a penitential one, tied to David’s confession of his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and his crime of having arranged for the death of her husband, Uriah. While the psalm begins with the example of a particular sin, David’s act of violence against Uriah, it is the tip of the iceberg. Mark Water writes in Thoughts on Every Chapter of the Bible that sin is a brutal and undeniable aspect of the human condition. Hidden in the psalmist’s desperate plea is the key to healing, God’s creative mercy and grace that can take the dust off our broken hearts and generate an abundant life. The dramatic language of the psalm gives flesh to the deepest hurts in our lives and brings us into the center of the Lenten Seasons purpose, to return to oneness with God by calling on the Almighty to wash, purge, and recreate our broken lives. But this can only occur by passing through the gates of sin’s grief through an honest admission of our brokenness so that God’s grace and mercy can heal our hearts and souls.

Luke’s reflection verse brings into focus one of the significant images of Jesus, that of the Great Doctor. In this Lenten season, when we are called to “come back” to the Lord, to come back to his teachings being the center of our life, we can view this as a sort of “state of our faith life checkup.”  It’s not necessarily the physical or even mental things we need to address regarding our faith, as much as our spiritual health. Fr. Daniel Renaud writes that we all need to appreciate the broad impact and significance our spiritual lives have in our overall experience of wellness. This is true whether we are dealing with serious health challenges daily or wanting to be more complete, more whole. Spiritual, physical, and mental health are all closely related. If that is the case, let us not hesitate to expose our wounds and our sickness to our good doctor, Jesus Christ. Let us seek the comfort of His churches, and our spiritual hospitals, and ask him: “Lord, lay your hands and eyes on us so your medicine may heal us for the glory of your Kingdom!” Let us return to Him to be made whole again.   

St. Angela of Foligno, known as the “Mistress of Theologians,” writing in Give Us This Day, said that Christ did not say: “Learn from me to fast,” although as an example to us and for our salvation, he fasted forty days and forty nights. He did not say: “Learn from me to despise the world and live in poverty,” although he lived in great poverty and wished that his disciples live the same way. But he said: “Learn from me because I am meek and humble of heart.” He set forth humility of heart and meekness as the foundation and firmest basis for all the other virtues. For neither abstinence, severe fasting, outward poverty, shabby clothing, outward show of good works, the performance of miracles—none of these amount to anything without the humility of heart. Instead, abstinence will become blessed, austerity and shabby clothes will become blessed, and good deeds will become blessed and full of life when they are solidly founded in humility.

When the Chosen People of Israel were near the end of their forty-year sojourn in the desert, they arrived in the territory of Moab. That is where we pick up the story in Deuteronomy, where Moses states one of his more famous expressions: “Choose life!” Lent has “arrived” to remind us again that the way to life God offers is not one the world proposes. The world sees God’s ways as limiting. However, if properly understood, God’s ways are truly liberating. The life God offers is not for the sake of freedom to indulge in every desire and pleasure, to pursue wealth, greed, selfishness, lies, and indulgence in the world’s ways. These things are destroying, day after day, people’s lives. Life, now and in the future, consists of hearing, taking to heart, and living out the way of life that God proposes. Today, God offers us a clear choice between life and death. And He leaves the choice to us.

This verse, which the liturgy of the Church uses as a call to penance on Ash Wednesday, acts as a conclusion to the first part of the Joel through a change of heart, backed up by sincere acts of penance, which can cause God to stay his hand and spare his people any more affliction. Saint Jerome calls us to show our repentance and inner conversion through fasting, mourning, and tears. “By fasting now, your hunger will be satisfied later; mourning now, one day you will laugh; weeping now, you shall be consoled.” Catherine de Hueck Doherty, in her book, Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter, writes: “Let each one of us open their heart to God, and let him wash us clean, let him fill us with a hunger for him, and a thirst. Let him make us his own so that our joy will be beyond reckoning when we come to Easter. All we have to do is pass from the old into the new. Leave behind the things that bind us away from God. Cut the cords with the scissors of love and go forth.”

It’s 4 AM, and the reading for the day that has captured me is from Sirach. I couldn’t have asked for a better verse to reflect upon about trusting God. I am blessed to work in the Lord’s vineyard, yet sometimes it can challenge your trust in others and the organizational institutions of faith. Minor concerns can morph into many things affecting trust in people and the institutions we serve. Most concerning is the danger of allowing the darkness of life to creep in and affect trust in the Lord. Serving the Lord is not without its trials. But no matter what happens, if we genuinely believe in all that the Lord stands for, we will remain sincere, steadfast, and faithful. Ben Sira believed that patience and unwavering trust in God are ultimately rewarded with God’s mercy and lasting joy. Trust has to be complete. You either trust someone, or you don’t. You can’t “kind of” trust somebody or trust them “a little bit.” If you say you trust someone, you trust them with your life. So when it comes to trusting in God, it means you trust the Lord in everything, without a doubt, without question, and with boundless confidence. It’s easier said than done, but that is what genuine trust is all about.

Prayer is an often-beguiling part of our faith. Many fail to pray because of unbelief in its effectiveness. While it is normal to feel this way, Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that we need to reflect on this critical reminder: prayer is most important and powerful precisely when we feel it is most hopeless and most helpless. From the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus highlighted the need for humility. Today’s reading from Mark describes another exorcising of evil spirits by Jesus. His disciples are again amazed at what he can do, especially since they could not drive out the spirit in their earlier attempts. The Lord uses this event as another opportunity to teach the disciples the need for humility. He tells them these kinds of efforts will never be under their control. All their future ministry efforts in healing and deliverance will bear fruit only through reliance on God, as they bring all needs to the feet of the Lord in prayer. We need to pray precisely because we are helpless and precisely because it does seem hopeless.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us to the perfection of the Father. But in our humanness, we are incapable of that type of perfection, of having no flaws. Is that the perfection the Lord calling us to? Hebrew culture taught perfection as compassion. If we take into account the Hebrew understanding, we move from the idea of having no flaws to a perfection defined by the compassion we show others. Who are the “others” in life? Fr. Ron Rolheiser provides some insight when he says there will be just one question asked at the pearly gates, “Where are the others? You know, the widows, orphans, and strangers. I mean, you did you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoners, right? This must be the compassion we live out. It requires a lens of life that is focused outwardly. Bishop Robert Barron says it is evidenced by “willing the good of the other, for the other.” It’s moving away from any self-reference and only giving away the love of God precisely and only for the good of the other – no strings attached. That is the perfection we should strive to attain each day. And that, I would propose, is living in a world that could be defined as “heaven on earth.”

The Gospel verse today comes from Mark’s recounting of the Transfiguration of Christ. Mark describes the Transfiguration as a literal metamorphosis, a “going beyond the form that he had.” Bishop Robert Barron uses Paul’s language to speak of the Transfiguration as “the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.” In and through his humble humanity, his divinity shines forth. The proximity of his divinity in no way compromises the integrity of his humanity but instead makes it shine in greater beauty. This is the New Testament version of the burning bush. The Jesus who is both divine and human is the Jesus who is evangelically compelling. If Jesus is only divine, he doesn’t touch us; if he is only human, he can’t save us. Jesus’ splendor consists of the coming together of his two natures.

How do we live out the reflection verse from Mark’s Gospel message? To be a disciple of Jesus means to stand up and be counted. What if all of our accumulated possessions were sent away, but we were left behind? Would we lose our grounding? Our identity? Our meaning and purpose? Jesus asks us to examine our attachments. He reminds us that the real objective of this life is to possess eternal life through his salvific grace and our acceptance of that gift. We live out that gift by embracing his great commandment: Love of God and neighbor. When we keep our eyes fixed on our relationship with God, we find the strength and the mercy that helps us get through any daily cross that needs to be carried. It begins by centering life on the center of life, Christ.