Living Water
8 March, 2010
Monday of the Third Week of Lent
2 Kings 5:1-15
Ps 42: 2-3, 43:3-4
Luke 4:24-30
This year, I am struck by how in this "desert time" of Lent, the scriptures abound with currents of water—wells, springs and rivers, oceans and seas—from the vast and formless waters from which the earth is born, to "the river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Rev 22:1).
Naaman is indignant at the prophet's command, asking "Are not the Abana and Pharpar...better than all the waters of Israel?" (2 Kgs 5:12), but it is Israel's special dignity that she brings us Jesus the Messiah, who is that wellspring of Living Water that restores our souls. Our souls do not pine for the rivers of Damascus, nor the waters of the Jordan, but for God himself.
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so longs my soul for you, O God.
Ps 42:1
Naaman would be pleased to do some great and mighty act to effect his cure (2 Kgs 5:13), but disdains the simple, humble effort which would make him whole. In the end, it is his very servants who convince him: God has chosen the weak to shame the strong (1 Cor 1:27), the humble waters of grace to wash away all barriers. So do the waters of our Baptism continue to erode, drop by insistent drop, our selfishness, our pride, our hardness to life.
Be praised, my Lord,
through Sister Water.
She is useful, and humble,
and precious and pure.
St. Francis of Assisi, "Canticle of the Sun"
Holy Ground
7 March, 2010
Thoughts on the readings for the Third Sunday of Lent:
Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15
Psalm 103:1-4, 6-8, 11
1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12
Luke 13:1-9
God comes to Moses on the Holy Mountain, and he reveals himself in his Name, that glorious and terrible Name, the hidden and mysterious Name, the sublime, ineffable Name, "I AM."
God comes to us, a Holy Fire who pours Himself continually on us, but is not spent (Ex 3:2). God is, who is Being itself, and apart from Him is nothing (John 1:3-4). In the profoundest sense we cannot be unless we are in God, we are made to seek Him, "in whom we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:27-28)
You have made us for yourself, Lord,
and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
St. Augustine of Hippo
One of the great themes of Lent, expressed in reading after reading, is that the way of the Lord is light and life, and to turn from it leads only to barrenness and dryness (Psalm 1). Today St. Paul takes us to the desert wanderings of Israel, and reminds us that God provides water in the barren places (Ex 17:6)—and that wellspring of Life is Christ himself (1 Cor 10:4).
"Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
John 4:13-14
Our Lenten fasting serves to ask us "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" (Is 55:2) It reminds us, too, that all we have comes from God, and he made it to be good for us. As we walk with Israel in their wandering in the Lenten season, we come at last to the table of the Lord, we come to see at last that in Him all ground is holy ground.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest to lay her young,
at thy altars, O Lord of hosts.
Communion Antiphon, Ps. 84:3
Beatus Vir
4 March, 2010
Some thoughts on the readings for Thursday of the Second Week of Lent:
Jer 17:5-10
Ps 1:1-4,6
Lk 16:19-31
"If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead." (Lk. 16:31)
The Gospel is but one Gospel, from God's covenant with Abraham, to the Law given to Moses on Sinai, to Christ who gives his life for us on Calvary. Jesus is the Great Prophet raised up by God (Deut. 18:15-20), the second Moses who speaks to the Lord face to face, as a man speaks to his friend (Ex. 33:11, Deut. 34:10). But he is more: he is God himself, who took flesh to walk among us, to offer himself for us, to lead us to the Father.
The delicious cleverness with which Jesus presents the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is painful, because Jesus knew how profound these words were for the people of Israel who would reject him (Mark 6:4, John 1:11).
God wishes all to come to him (1 Tim. 2:4), but all paths apart from God, no matter their good intentions, fail to satisfy. They distort, they detract, the lead us to a dry and barren place where no life or growth is possible (Jer. 17:6).
What intrigues me most about the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is that the "rich man" is defined only by his station and his goods, but Father Abraham knows Lazarus by name, and ushers him into the consoling presence of the Lord. Even in his torment, the rich man beckons Lazarus to do his bidding as if he were his possession, not a person. Like the "scoffers" of Psalm 1, when we fail to acknowledge God as our Creator, we cannot truly know humanity, or live life in its true fullness.
Our hearts, as Jeremiah proclaims, only lead us astray; it is only God's Word which saves—that Eternal Word revealed to us most surely, most perfectly, in Jesus Christ, who leads us to good pasture beside the still waters, to the rich bounty of eternal Spring.
"He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither."
Psalm 1:3