Wednesday

4th Week of Lent, Wednesday

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Today’s Gospel continues the aftermath of Our Lord healing an infirm man at Bethesda, which we considered yesterday. Since Jesus had healed on a Sabbath, the “Jews” (the scribes and Pharisees) began to persecute him. Today’s Gospel begins with his response to their criticism: God the Father works on the Sabbath, and, therefore, so does he, since he’s been sent by the Father. Despite their lack of faith they intuit from this declaration that Jesus considers himself equal to God in this affirmation, which is why they think he deserves death. So we see events slowly turning toward Holy Week and Our Lord’s Passion.

John’s Gospel often communicates at multiple levels. In this case, Our Lord is not shying away from the fact of being God the Son, although that would be a terrifying realization to his listeners if they grasped it fully, since the Lord for them was someone tremendous, transcendent, and awesome, but Our Lord is also explaining today how every believer, in imitation of him, should imagine and live his relationship with God. God wants to be Our Father, so we should treat him as a good son or daughter would, in imitation of Jesus. Today’s First Reading encourages Israel to realize that the Lord loves us as a parent and beyond: even if by some tragedy a mother should forget her child, the Lord would not forget.

Lent is the perfect time to revisit our relationship with Our Father and see whether we’re being good sons and daughters. No matter what we do, he’ll never forget us or stop loving us. Seek his will, because his only desire is our love and happiness.

Readings: Isaiah 49:8–15; Psalm 145:8–9, 13c–14, 17–18; John 5:17–30.

3rd Week of Lent, Wednesday

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Today’s Gospel passage concerning the Law and the prophets is situated almost immediately after the Beatitudes in Matthew’s Gospel. The First Reading today reminds us that Moses told the Israelites that observing the Law would show their intelligence and wisdom not only among themselves, but to all the nations. In Chapter 5 of Matthew’s Gospel Our Lord is being cast as a new Moses, speaking once again the words of encouragement to the People of God. He is far more than Moses, as John reminds us in his Gospel: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

If Our Lord brought something way beyond Moses, way beyond the Law, a question obviously on his listeners’ minds is whether the Law is necessary at all, now that they have the opportunity to receive something more. Our Lord is about to teach them that the precepts of the Law are to be followed, but from the heart, not just out of a hollow external religious observance. Today he tells them that when considering the Law and the prophets they should consider their purpose; they were meant to reflect wisdom and intelligence and that wisdom and intelligence needs to be sought and kept in mind in order for their observance to fulfill its purpose. As he continues his discourse in Chapter 5 he starts teaching them how the Law’s they’d already been following needed to be lived from the perspective of charity.

Today we may ask ourselves why, based on this teaching of Lord, are we not observant Jews falling all the old precepts of the Law? Our Lord himself criticized certain traditions of interpretation introduced by the scribes and Pharisees that were not what the Lord wished (cf. Matthew 15:1–20). After his Ascension the Church also wrestled with this question when they started evangelizing non-Jews, and they discerned, in keeping with Our Lord’s teaching and aided by the Holy Spirit, that Our Lord was not asking Christians to follow the Mosaic Law and culture in its entirety (cf. Acts 15:1–35).

If you have difficulty following the “rules” of our faith, ask Our Lord to help you to rediscover their purpose, wisdom, and intelligence. He wants to teach us, even today, if we let him.

Readings: Deuteronomy 4:1, 5–9; Psalm 147:12–13, 15–16, 19–20; Matthew 5:17–19. See also 10th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday.

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.

1st Week of Lent, Wednesday

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Just as the Ninevites in today’s First Reading, Lent is a time when all Christians consider Our Lord’s call for repentance and conversion and consider the path they’ve taken in life. The Ninevites believed the Lord’s warning of destruction; he didn’t exhort repentance, but gave them forty days to figure that out, and they did. Our Lord in today’s Gospel, faced with the incredulity of the crowds, takes them to task for not just rejecting a prophet’s warning, but a warning from God the Son himself. Our Lord warns us that amidst all the “career options” and “lifestyle choices” there is really one path to take. People speak of the road to Hell, but there is only one true road that goes anywhere: the road toward being with God forever that we call Heaven. It’s a road where following the right vocation and making the right choices leads us. If we turn away from that road we’re lost and may contribute to others being led astray as well.

That thought would be fatalistic if we didn’t remember the point of arrival: a fulfilled and content life in communion with God, a rest from all our labors. In short, true and lasting happiness. Repentance and conversion are not just to make life more miserable or to cramp our lifestyle; they’re the way to get back on track and take the only road and the only lifestyle that truly matters: in imitation of Christ and in communion with God and with others. Otherwise we won’t go the distance.

Nineveh received a forty day grace period to figure it out; these days of Lent remind us that our whole life is a grace period to find and follow the right road. Let’s use this grace period to recover and foster a life of grace so that when it expires we’re not faced with a dead end or lost along the way. The choice is ours.

Readings: Jonah 3:1–10; Psalm 51:3–4, 12–13, 18–19; Luke 11:29–32. See also 28th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday,  16th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday and the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday.

4th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday

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Today’s First Reading begs the question of what the big deal is if King David wants to do a census of his people. A leader would normally be within his rights to do so. However, almost immediately after the census, David realizes he has sinned and asks the Lord for forgiveness. Scholars debate here what the sin here was, but perhaps pride and vanity were involved, which is why David realized almost as soon as it was done that he’d acted wrongly. His commander Joab had tried to dissuade him, but David insisted; maybe Joab and his commanders knew that the people would take such a gesture badly, and ancient peoples also believed at the time that actions like a census made the king have a mysterious power over them and was an expression of ownership. It’s also true that a census is usually taken for taxation, allocation of resources, or to measure military strength with war in mind. It could also have been simply a way for David to flex what he thought was his absolute authority.

As David realizes and the Lord reminds him, his authority comes from the Lord and is at the service of the people. Authority bears responsibility, and when authority sins, it has an effect on the people who answer to that authority. Three possible punishments are offered, and each reflects a punishment related to a goal of the census: they would all impact the population and make the census useless, because people would die. In choosing David still tries to remain directly unaffected by what happens next: he chooses the shortest punishment, one that apparently would affect him the least, and once again realizes how horrible a decision he made when self-preservation was involved. By the time he asks the Lord to bring punishment upon himself  instead, the deed is already done and seventy thousand have died.

All our actions have consequences, and at times our pride can blind us to the long term ones. Let’s ask Our Lord to help us not abuse, out of vanity or pride, whatever gifts or duties he has entrusted to us.

Readings: 2 Samuel 24:2, 9–17; Psalm 32:1–2, 5–7; Mark 6:1–6. See also 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 17th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday, 22nd Week in Ordinary Time, Monday, Thursday after Epiphany, and 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C.