Tuesday

3rd Week of Lent, Tuesday

by

In today’s Gospel Peter asks Our Lord to quantify when enough is enough in terms of forgiving someone. He wants to put a number on it. Our Lord’s response, due to the original Greek, is either seventy-seven (77) or four hundred ninety times (7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x…): in short, a lot. However, he follows up with a parable that shows we must be unlimited in our mercy. Picture the servant in today’s Gospel as being Adam after the Fall: the servant owed so much (10,000 talents in the original Greek, the equivalent wages of 160,000 years of labor) that not only was his freedom and property forfeit, but that of his entire family as well. With no freedom and no “capital” he’d never be able to repay his debt. Adam and Eve cost all of humanity their communion with God due their sin; the rest of us didn’t commit it, but we suffered its consequences, and still do. The Lord, like the king in today’s Gospel, forgave the whole debt. Everything the servant deserved to lose, he retained, due to the king’s mercy, even though he’d squandered so much.

How does the servant respond? He decided to turn a new leaf in life by becoming a loan shark collecting on his old debts. The amount his fellow servant owed him was infinitesimal (one percent) compared to what he’d just been forgiven. His repentance was shown to be short lived. When we are struggling to forgive someone, or to love someone, we are always tempted to say, “enough is enough.” We ask ourselves whether there’s a fixed rule of thumb, as Peter tried to do today, for limiting our mercy. Our Lord teaches us that “How much is enough?” is the wrong question. The right question is, “Am I going to squander the mercy I’ve received by not showing mercy to others?” The servant was forgiven, and he squandered that forgiveness by not forgiving in return; note that when the king hears of it, only the servant himself is punished, and in a worse way.

We’ve received a priceless gift of mercy through faith and Baptism. We can never repay that debt. When someone wrongs us, we have to remember that no matter how much they’ve wronged us it’s nothing compared to how much the Lord has forgiven us and continues to forgive us. Let’s forgive our brothers from the heart.

Readings: Daniel 3:25, 34–43; Psalm 25:4–5b, 6, 7b–9; Matthew 18:21–35. See also 19th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday.

2nd Week of Lent, Tuesday

by

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.

1st Week of Lent, Tuesday

by

Lent is a good time to take stock of our prayer, and today Our Lord reminds us that prayer should be simple and reflect the state of our heart. The petitions we make reflect and shape our attitudes as well as our willingness to be pleasing in his sight. The Lord’s Prayer contains the simplest, most basic petitions and attitudes on which all our prayer should be founded.

We ask that God be glorified in Heaven and on earth, and we know that the best way to glorify God is to help his will be done, showing that he is someone special to us and good for the whole world. His will, as today’s First Reading reminds us, will be done; that “word” that goes forth from him is his Son, and his Son will accomplish Our Father’s will in Heaven and on earth. We can second that in our lives or be spectators left out in the cold when it happens without our participation. It all rests on our willingness and our effort.

We ask for our daily bread. Not yachts, fame, riches, but what we need. What we need is very simple; sometimes we lose sight of that. We should strive to make what we want not much more than what we need in a spirit of Gospel poverty. We may have nice things, but we know they’re to provide for our needs and to be used to help provide for the needs of others.

We ask for forgiveness, but, just as importantly, we ask for the grace to forgive others, because we know the degree we receive mercy is determined by the degree to which we show it. Our Lord reiterates this connection in today’s Gospel and also dedicates an entire parable to the subject (see Matthew 18:21–35).

Lastly, we acknowledge that we cannot effectively resist temptation and battle evil alone. We need Our Lord’s help, first in not getting into situations of temptation or evil in the first place, but also in giving us the grace we need to overcome temptation and be holy.

A long path of prayer remains this Lent. Meditate on the Lord’s Prayer and see what needs and attitudes you are bringing before Our Lord. Lent is a time for changing attitudes for the better.

Readings: Isaiah 55:10–11; Psalm 34:4–7, 16–19; Matthew 6:7–15. See also 11th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday

5th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

by

Blessing yourself with holy water is not the same as being baptized, but both are useful. If someone was dying of thirst you wouldn’t take the last water available and say, “sorry, I need to bless some holy water.” Charity to God and charity toward others are the bedrock of every other thing we believe and do as believers. Our Lord in today’s Gospel is criticizing the Pharisees for focusing so much on the secondary and contingent things that they feel justified in neglecting the essential and necessary things. Ritual sprinklings of water outside the Temple were like today’s popular devotions; some people use holy water, and others don’t. The Pharisees were criticizing the disciples for not sprinkling water on themselves while ignoring the fact that as disciples of Jesus they were doing an even greater service to God by studying with a Rabbi.

Our Lord condemns the Pharisees for simply paying lip service to God out of their own interests. Even today when someone is consecrated to God their natural obligations toward family are not suspended–if their parents are in need, they support them. The Pharisees used a pretext of consecrating their wealth (which was not giving it away, but saying it could not be used for non-sacred things) as a reason for not providing the material support for their parents, a practice that flew in the face of one of the Ten Commandments and dishonored their parents.

It is good to have religious practices beyond our religious obligations, but optional practices and obligatory ones should work together to ensure that love for God and love for neighbor are protected. Charity toward God and toward others is the best religious practice we can undertake.

Readings: 1 Kings 8:22–23, 27–30; Psalm 84:3–5, 10–11; Mark 7:1–13. See also 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.

3rd Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

by

In today’s First Reading David spares no expense or effort to welcome the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem with a liturgy that was not only generous, materially speaking, but from the heart. He danced before the Ark to show his love for the Lord. The Ark represented the Lord’s presence and favor among his people; it was at the center of Jewish worship. David to some seemed to be making a fool of himself, dancing before the Lord, but David had his priorities straight: everything he’d gained in life had come from the Lord, and he owed everything to the Lord as a result.

In the Eucharist we do not just have a representation of the Lord’s presence; we have the Lord himself. We don’t sacrifice animals to him, because he had made himself the perfect sacrifice to offer the Father, but do offer the sacrifices of living a holy life that is pleasing to him and that is also thanks to his sacrifice, which won us the grace to be holy. We don’t dance, but we do “celebrate” the Eucharist with a joy of blessings received and acknowledged and an eager anticipation for receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion to deepen in our love for him.

Make the liturgy today a moment of celebration and eager anticipation.

Readings: 2 Samuel 6:12b–15, 17–19; Psalm 24:7–10; Mark 3:31–35. See also 16th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday and 25th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday.