March 7, 2017
Tuesday, Lent Week One
“From all their afflictions, God will deliver the just.”
Isaiah
55: 10-11 tells us how he does it: God saves us through his “word”: “It
will not return to me void, but shall... achieve the end for which I sent it.”
This is not just God’s creative word. He compares it to the “rain
and snow” that “water the earth, making it fertile and fruitful.” That is what
God’s word does for us. It makes us fertile in life-giving ideas and fruitful
in the lives we lead and help others to lead. We need to take in God’s word the
way we take in food and water. If we do, “From
all their afflictions, God will deliver the just.”
The Responsorial Psalm
emphasizes two kinds of prayer that “deliver” us. The first is the prayer that
the Liturgy of the Word encourages:
meditation, “faith seeking understanding” through reflection: “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and
delivered me from all my fears.” Jesus said, “Seek and you will find. knock,
and the door will be opened for you.” He also said, “If you remain in my word,
[immersed in it, absorbed in trying to learn and live it] you will truly be my disciples and you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.” Free from destructive errors and distortions;
free from fears and anxieties. Prayer helps us see God and the world in
perspective. In that view, God reigns supreme and there is no room for fear. “From all their afflictions, God will deliver
the just.”[1]
Matthew
6: 7-15 teaches us a second way to pray: the way Jesus taught his
disciples:[2]
The “Our Father” is “petitionary prayer,” but it is also instructive. It makes
a list of Jesus’ own priorities and tells us to adopt them as our own. If we
pray for these petitions above all others, thinking about what we are saying,
we will grow into union with the mind and heart of Christ. This is also a
prayer of discipleship.
Every petition in the Our
Father is asking for Christ’s triumph, which will be complete at the end of
the world.[3]
What is delaying it? If God’s word “will not return void, but shall achieve the
end for which he sent it,” why is the Kingdom not yet established?
The answer is simple: there are not enough disciples on earth who
are truly immersed in his word — enough to understand and live it. We tend to
settle for keeping the laws, without learning where they come from or where
they intend to lead us. Even some teachers in the Church just learn doctrines
and laws, without seeking deep understanding of the mind and heart of God from
whence they came, and pass shallow understanding on to others.” Jesus calls
them the blind leading the blind. There is no substitute for deep, personal
discipleship.[4]
Initiative:
Be a disciple. Ask where every law comes from and where it leads.
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