What’s the Lord
done for you today?
The Book of Sirach
teaches us that the Lord hears the cry of
the oppressed and pays particular attention to those members of society – in
this case, widows and orphans – who are the most
disadvantaged, because the prayer of the
lowly pierces the clouds. Sirach
calls to justice all who think themselves righteous, encouraging the faithful
to do what God commands, to act from a place of love and compassion in every
dealing they have with others. Psalm 34
echoes Sirach, noting that the Lord hears
the cry of the poor, but taking this idea a step further: the
Lord is also close to the
brokenhearted. God reaches out to
those who are hurting, to those who are feeling distant from him; his response
to our distance is to draw close in order to comfort us. If we take
refuge in him, turning to him in our need, recognizing our need for his
action in our lives, and accepting that he will work through us, then we have
truly entered into relationship, entering into God and allowing God to enter
into our lives. But we must first
recognize our need for the Lord, our need of his forgiveness, of his love, of his
life within us.
Unlike the
psalmist, the Pharisee praying in the temple in Luke’s Gospel is not open to
God, does not seem to need God’s help, and feels justified in standing before
the Lord eye to eye, equal to equal. He
is so full of himself that he doesn’t realize the arrogance of his own prayer,
believing he is not like the rest of
humanity. The lowly tax collector,
on the other hand, gets it right: he
appreciates the depth of his own sin and knows that he doesn’t deserve to come
before the Lord: O God, be merciful to me, a sinner, he says. But again, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and so the tax collector
comes before God to ponder who God is and who he himself is and fully aware
that he owes everything to God. St. Paul
will express a similar sentiment in his second letter to Timothy: when he was brought to trial by the Romans,
everyone deserted him – everyone but the Lord, who stood by him and gave him
strength. And so, Paul offers the entirety of his life
to God, poured out like a libation, giving
the whole of himself back to God, for God’s use, that he might give witness to
the good news.
We, too, must
constantly remind ourselves that God is standing by us even when no one else is, and that the Lord is there to nurture us in faith, to keep us on course,
to ensure that our lives are pure offering.
What has the Lord done for us today?
His presence alone sustains us; he is there, always, to rescue us, to redeem our lives, to be our refuge at all times. May our petitions
reach the heavens, that we might known God’s mercy and love in its fullness
– that we might open to his compassionate care, drawing close to the Lord and the Lord draws close to us.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
No comments:
Post a Comment