FrNikola

2nd Week of Lent, Saturday

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Today’s Gospel is one of the most poignant parables about not only God’s mercy, but the mercy we should show toward sinners as well. Our Lord’s listeners are those who want to condemn sinners, much like the Prodigal Son’s older brother in today’s parable. Our Lord invites them, and us, through the parable to really reflect on whether those things sinners do to us and God are enough to want them to be forever condemned. The short answer is that it is not about what they deserve, but the potentially dire consequences of their actions.

The prodigal son sins against his father; he wants his inheritance even before his father dies, and then shows right away that he wants nothing further to do with him. He tries to liquidate the relationship so that he can face life on his own and enjoy it as he wishes. That desire leads him far from his father not only physically, but spiritually as well. As far as he’s concerned his father is dead in his eyes, past history. Sinners walk the same path; they see the Father, who has lavished so many gifts on them, as cramping their lifestyle. They want the blessings, but they don’t want the obligations and they don’t want anything to do with the source of those blessings. We describe sinners as far from God, but this really means that they try to keep him at a distance, not that he doesn’t want to be close to them.

When things get tough for the prodigal son, and he sees what a cold an uncaring world it is without love, in his own limited way he realizes how stupid he has been. You can’t liquidate a relationship with someone who gave you life itself and a start in the world. He works out in his mind how he expects to be treated, and decides that even if his father treats him like an employee rather than a son he’d be better off. He knows deep down that he must acknowledge his sin to draw close to his father again. The sinner has to be sorry for what he’s done, and this sorrow has to go from just regretting what a mess he’s made of life to being sorry for how he has treated a Father who has loved him unconditionally ever since he dreamed of him in eternity, created him in history, and blessed him throughout his life.

The father keeps an eye on the horizon hoping his son will return. He leaps into action when he sees his son coming. Our Father does the same thing when we are sorry for our sins; he closes that gap we’ve introduced between us and him and is eager to embrace us again. How often we convince ourselves that he’ll treat us like the older brother, considering us brats and ungrateful selfish children who need to be taught a lesson for all we’ve has done? The father himself responds to that attitude when the older brother shows it: “everything I have is yours.” The older brother could have asked for whatever he wished, and the father would have granted it; instead he trapped himself in an outlook on the father that simply reflected his own: resentful, exacting, and merciless. The father tells us the true reason to rejoice when a sinner repents: someone we love returns from death to life.

Lent is a time to ponder the hardness in our hearts regarding those who have wronged us or wronged others and ask ourselves whether we want mercy for them or eternal condemnation. Our Lord teaches us today that mercy toward them is where our hearts should be. Whether they are sorry for their sins or not, we should want mercy for them and pray that they repent and seek it. If, instead of being the older brother, we’re the prodigal son it’s time to come home. The Father awaits us with open arms.

Readings: Micah 7:14–15, 18–20; Psalm 103:1–4, 9–12; Luke 15:1–3, 11–32. See also 31st Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday.

2nd Week of Lent, Friday

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All Lenten resolutions involve some form of healthy self-detachment: detachment from our preferences and “personal” time (prayer), detachment from the things that tickle our fancy and our appease our appetites (fasting), and detachment from our possessions and time for the sake of others (almsgiving). Today’s readings remind us what happens when we don’t: we forget that everything we have is a gift from a loving Father, we get caught up into a distorted sense of entitlement, and suddenly anyone who may make a move on what we consider “ours” is a threat to be eliminated. This is covetousness and envy: wanting something so much that you see another’s gain almost automatically as your loss, and would rather have it that nobody possesses that good if you can’t have it.

In today’s First Reading little Joseph received a love from his father that his brothers envy. When he falls into their hands the first thing they do is strip him of the very tunic his father bestowed on him as a sign of his affection. Even as they cast it aside and mistreat their brother they don’t think about the fact that the tunic, which represents that special relationship between Israel and his son Joseph, doesn’t “fit” them. They have also received so much from their father, but that doesn’t matter; they want what doesn’t belong to them, so they don’t want Joseph to have it either. This story is a pre-figuration of Christ’s reception when he is sent by the Father. The parable of the wicked tenants in today’s Gospel is a way of teaching the Pharisees that they had fallen into a warped sense of entitlement over something that didn’t belong to them: the People of God. So when the Son comes on behalf of the true “owner” of the People of God they’re going to reject him and kill him thinking that somehow everything will then return to normal. Our Lord today through the parable is prophesying the outcome of their covetousness and envy: everything they thought was theirs will be taken away and given to those who’ll be worthy stewards of God’s gifts.

As we make an extra effort at healthy self-detachment during Lent we feel more deeply the things to which we want to attach: people, pleasures, possessions, positions of power. Take stock of these attachments and ask Our Lord to help you see the blessings and gifts you have received in your life as exactly that, and not focus in an envious way on what he has bestowed on others.

Readings: Genesis 37:3–4, 12–13a, 17b–28a; Psalm 105:16–21; Matthew 21:33–43, 45–46. See also 9th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday.

2nd Week of Lent, Thursday

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As today’s First Reading reminds us, those who turn from God and put their trust in men and things of the flesh are spiritually like a scraggly bush in a dry and burning desert. The Rich Man in today’s Gospel doesn’t even have a name; after living the high life, maybe not at the expense of Lazarus, but certainly indifferent to him, he found himself a dry bush in the spiritual desert in which he’d planted himself, far from the fleeting comforts of his life that faded away. If our thirst for the things of this life at the expense of our concern for God and for others remains, we know that someday we’ll never be able to slake it again as a consequence of our actions: we’ll have planted ourselves in a desert and let our roots go deep.

Today’s First Reading also reminds us that those who trust and hope in the Lord have a source of life that will survive every adversity and continue to be full of life in eternity. Today’s Gospel describes Lazarus, infirm, poor, and so alone that he only had dogs for company. Yet he persevered in hope, simply by not lamenting his situation and also not deciding to take matters into his own hands by robbing, maybe even murdering, the unjust man on whose doorstep he was languishing. The moral of the story is to place your hope and trust in the things that really last. God lasts forever, and sooner or or later shows himself to be worthy of our trust, but only after it is tested. Health, riches, and power don’t last forever, so we shouldn’t act as if they will, or else we too will find ourselves in a desert thirsting for what was and lamenting what could have been.

Ask Our Lord to help you see where your trust is placed today, and to help you firmly root your life in him, the only lasting thing worthy of trust.

Readings: Jeremiah 17:5–10; Psalm 1:1–4, 6; Luke 16:19–31.

2nd Week of Lent, Wednesday

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Prayer is a moment of quiet time with Our Lord where two close friends are totally open with each other because they know they can be. At the Last Supper Our Lord will tell the apostles that he considers them friends, not servants, because he has kept nothing back from them, a sign of friendship and trust (cf. John 15:12–15). So Our Lord decides in today’s Gospel that it is time to warn the Twelve about his impending Passion and Resurrection. In Matthew’s account there’s no sign of how the Twelve reacted, but in Luke’s account (Luke 18:31–34) it says they didn’t understand what he was saying. When something tragic happens in the life of a friend you often suddenly see in retrospect that he was alluding to it all along, but you just didn’t pick up on the signals. As Our Lord makes his final journey to Jerusalem he is doing more than sending out signals; he is trying to prepare them for what is about to happen, something that will shake all their convictions about the Messiah.

James, John, and their mother show that they still don’t get it. They remind us today that friendship is not just knowing you can ask your friend for something, but being attentive and listening to them as well and picking up on the signals. James and John were open to what Jesus wanted; they would also drink the “chalice”one day of suffering and martyrdom, whether red or white, but they were still filtering it through their expectations of glory that was still too earthly.

If Christian life is taking up our cross and following Christ, we shouldn’t be shocked if in a moment of intimate prayer he reveals to us the disquieting truth of the Cross. We’re all headed to Calvary. He wants to strengthen and prepare us as we bear our crosses, great and small. If we filter out what comes after the Cross, the Resurrection, it’s no surprise that we’ll balk. Let’s continue this time of Lent straining to listen to our Best Friend with no filters and no spin.

Readings: Jeremiah 18:18–20; Psalm 31:5–6, 14–16; Matthew 20:17–28. See also 8th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday, St. James the Apostle, and 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.

2nd Week of Lent, Tuesday

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One of the categories of Lenten resolutions is fasting, which we usually consider in terms of food, but really opens the door to various ways of practicing self-denial as a way of growing in spiritual self-mastery and not letting unhealthy or unholy passions drive us. We can live driven by passion, and some passions are good, because they are noble and holy, but we also know, as Our Lord reminds us, that other passions, such as selfish ambition, are bad. Whether we’re a hall monitor, manager, or CEO we know that ambition, pride, and vanity can blind us to the fact that the position of authority we hold is not just meant to be self-serving, but to serve others as well.

Honors, authority, titles and recognition should not be ends in and of themselves; that would be a sign that selfish ambition was driving us. We all have a tendency at times to seek self-promotion and self-aggrandizement. Why not “fast” from that this Lent? Why not take stock of whatever authority, duty, or responsibility you have received and make an effort to serve through it and to not be self-serving in carrying it out? Chances are that Lenten resolution will help your charity and prayer as well; charity in that you’re putting other people first, and prayer in that you’re asking Our Lord what you should do and how you should do it, not your ego.

Let’s ask Our Lord today how we can serve, not how we can be served, just as he taught the disciples to do.

Readings: Isaiah 1:10, 16–20; Psalm 50:8–9, 16b–17, 21, 23; Matthew 23:1–12. See also 20th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday, 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, and 9th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday.