Daily Virtue

There are several places in the gospels where Jesus assures us that if we ask for something in his name, we are guaranteed to receive it. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, a renowned scripture scholar, suggests that when we pray “through Christ,” we pray through the resurrected Christ in heaven and the “body of Christ” on earth, ourselves. We need to be involved in helping answer our own prayers. Karl Rahner writes that asking in Jesus’ name means entering into him, living by him, and being one with him in love and faith. If he is in us by faith, in love, in grace, in his Spirit, then our petition arises from the center of our being, which is himself, and if all our petition and desire is gathered up and fused in him and his Spirit, then the Father hears us. To pray in Jesus’ name is to have one’s prayer answered, to receive God and God’s blessing, and then, even amid tears, even in pain, even in poverty, even when it seems that one has still not been heard, the heart rests in God, and that while we are still here on pilgrimage, far from the Lord-is perfect joy.

In this psalm, the writer (David) confesses his sin to the Lord. He wrote this psalm in response to being confronted by the prophet, Nathan, for his sin with Bathsheba. David acknowledges that his sin is ultimately a sin against God. We need to confess sin and receive God’s forgiveness whenever we identify sin in our lives. Confession involves honesty. We are honest with ourselves and with God. We freely admit what we’ve done. We don’t excuse it or blame others for it. We don’t call it less than it is. We also don’t merely confess our sins in broad strokes, but we need to be specific about the sins we’ve committed, both those of commission and omission. Such confession of sin requires humility. We have to humble ourselves before the Lord. We have to recognize that God is God and we are not. We have to rest and rely on his mercy and grace for us in Christ. In Christ, we are forgiven, justified, and made righteous. In Christ, we know David’s cry has ultimately been fulfilled.

Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes about an elderly professor speaking on the need for prayer in our lives: “Prayer isn’t easy because we’re always tired, distracted, busy, bored, and caught up in so many things that it’s hard to find the time and energy to center ourselves on God for some moments. So, this is what I do: No matter what my day is like, no matter what’s on my mind, no matter what my distractions and temptations are, I am faithful to this: Once a day, I pray the Our Father as best I can from where I am at that moment. Inside everything that’s going on inside me and around me that day, I pray the Our Father, asking God to hear me from inside of all the distractions and temptations besetting me. It’s the best I can do. Maybe it’s a bare minimum, and I should do more and try to concentrate harder, but at least I do that. And sometimes, it’s all I can do, but I do it every day as best I can. It’s the prayer Jesus told us to pray.” St. John Paul II wrote that prayer is not simply one occupation among many but is at the center of our life in Christ. It turns our attention away from ourselves and directs it to the Lord. Prayer fills the mind with truth and gives hope to the heart. Let us earnestly seek to pray this prayer each day.

This responsorial psalm today expresses the musing of a faithful heart, the seat of consciousness in which thoughts are formed. Through words, the soul finds voice, and the self is presented to God. The prayer serves the purpose of a sacrifice, which is the psalmist’s intention that this prayer poem is their offering. In Psalm 19, we see that the Lord is perfect and refreshes the soul; He is trustworthy, right, clear, true, desirable, precious, pure, sweet, and enduring forever. The Lord’s word brings everlasting life. This reality is how millions upon millions have come to believe in and follow Jesus Christ. They look around for a philosophy of life, a god, a world without God, a world without the sovereignty of God, a world with an explanation that makes more sense of more things. And after bringing Jesus into their heart, mind, and soul, they respond as the Apostle Peter did and say, “Where shall we go? Lord, you have the words of eternal life.”

This first Sunday of Lent brings forth the underlying essence of its intention in the reading from Psalm 51. The psalm’s title, Miserere: Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon, clarifies its purpose as a penitential one, tied to David’s confession of his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and his crime of having arranged for the death of her husband, Uriah. While the psalm begins with the example of a particular sin, David’s act of violence against Uriah, it is the tip of the iceberg. Mark Water writes in Thoughts on Every Chapter of the Bible that sin is a brutal and undeniable aspect of the human condition. Hidden in the psalmist’s desperate plea is the key to healing, God’s creative mercy and grace that can take the dust off our broken hearts and generate an abundant life. The dramatic language of the psalm gives flesh to the deepest hurts in our lives and brings us into the center of the Lenten Seasons purpose, to return to oneness with God by calling on the Almighty to wash, purge, and recreate our broken lives. But this can only occur by passing through the gates of sin’s grief through an honest admission of our brokenness so that God’s grace and mercy can heal our hearts and souls.

Luke’s reflection verse brings into focus one of the significant images of Jesus, that of the Great Doctor. In this Lenten season, when we are called to “come back” to the Lord, to come back to his teachings being the center of our life, we can view this as a sort of “state of our faith life checkup.”  It’s not necessarily the physical or even mental things we need to address regarding our faith, as much as our spiritual health. Fr. Daniel Renaud writes that we all need to appreciate the broad impact and significance our spiritual lives have in our overall experience of wellness. This is true whether we are dealing with serious health challenges daily or wanting to be more complete, more whole. Spiritual, physical, and mental health are all closely related. If that is the case, let us not hesitate to expose our wounds and our sickness to our good doctor, Jesus Christ. Let us seek the comfort of His churches, and our spiritual hospitals, and ask him: “Lord, lay your hands and eyes on us so your medicine may heal us for the glory of your Kingdom!” Let us return to Him to be made whole again.   

St. Angela of Foligno, known as the “Mistress of Theologians,” writing in Give Us This Day, said that Christ did not say: “Learn from me to fast,” although as an example to us and for our salvation, he fasted forty days and forty nights. He did not say: “Learn from me to despise the world and live in poverty,” although he lived in great poverty and wished that his disciples live the same way. But he said: “Learn from me because I am meek and humble of heart.” He set forth humility of heart and meekness as the foundation and firmest basis for all the other virtues. For neither abstinence, severe fasting, outward poverty, shabby clothing, outward show of good works, the performance of miracles—none of these amount to anything without the humility of heart. Instead, abstinence will become blessed, austerity and shabby clothes will become blessed, and good deeds will become blessed and full of life when they are solidly founded in humility.

When the Chosen People of Israel were near the end of their forty-year sojourn in the desert, they arrived in the territory of Moab. That is where we pick up the story in Deuteronomy, where Moses states one of his more famous expressions: “Choose life!” Lent has “arrived” to remind us again that the way to life God offers is not one the world proposes. The world sees God’s ways as limiting. However, if properly understood, God’s ways are truly liberating. The life God offers is not for the sake of freedom to indulge in every desire and pleasure, to pursue wealth, greed, selfishness, lies, and indulgence in the world’s ways. These things are destroying, day after day, people’s lives. Life, now and in the future, consists of hearing, taking to heart, and living out the way of life that God proposes. Today, God offers us a clear choice between life and death. And He leaves the choice to us.

This verse, which the liturgy of the Church uses as a call to penance on Ash Wednesday, acts as a conclusion to the first part of the Joel through a change of heart, backed up by sincere acts of penance, which can cause God to stay his hand and spare his people any more affliction. Saint Jerome calls us to show our repentance and inner conversion through fasting, mourning, and tears. “By fasting now, your hunger will be satisfied later; mourning now, one day you will laugh; weeping now, you shall be consoled.” Catherine de Hueck Doherty, in her book, Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter, writes: “Let each one of us open their heart to God, and let him wash us clean, let him fill us with a hunger for him, and a thirst. Let him make us his own so that our joy will be beyond reckoning when we come to Easter. All we have to do is pass from the old into the new. Leave behind the things that bind us away from God. Cut the cords with the scissors of love and go forth.”

It’s 4 AM, and the reading for the day that has captured me is from Sirach. I couldn’t have asked for a better verse to reflect upon about trusting God. I am blessed to work in the Lord’s vineyard, yet sometimes it can challenge your trust in others and the organizational institutions of faith. Minor concerns can morph into many things affecting trust in people and the institutions we serve. Most concerning is the danger of allowing the darkness of life to creep in and affect trust in the Lord. Serving the Lord is not without its trials. But no matter what happens, if we genuinely believe in all that the Lord stands for, we will remain sincere, steadfast, and faithful. Ben Sira believed that patience and unwavering trust in God are ultimately rewarded with God’s mercy and lasting joy. Trust has to be complete. You either trust someone, or you don’t. You can’t “kind of” trust somebody or trust them “a little bit.” If you say you trust someone, you trust them with your life. So when it comes to trusting in God, it means you trust the Lord in everything, without a doubt, without question, and with boundless confidence. It’s easier said than done, but that is what genuine trust is all about.