March 6/Third Tuesday of Lent
Remember that your compassion, O LORD, and your kindness are from of old.
In your kindness remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord. ~ Ps 25.6-7
One of the sources of closeness within families or among friends is predictable behavior: the dad who invariably insists on leaving early for the airport, the friend who is always late, the mom who cannot refrain from correcting grammar (guilty as charged!). Whether said ruefully or gratefully, “I knew you were going to say that!” or “He’s always been that way” are thus expressions of intimacy. Human relationships thrive on such security. As Anna Quindlen pointed out long ago in a “Life in the 30s” column that I clipped and kept, “Nothing makes you feel more secure than knowing exactly what another person is going to say or do at any given time. If my husband just cut into a slightly pink pork chop and scarfed it down — instead of holding up a piece at eye level, looking at it as though it were a murder suspect and saying, ‘Is this cooked enough?’ — I’d become pretty suspicious, I can tell you that.” Pork chops aside, when the people in our lives behave with at least a measure of consistency, we are able to develop trust and closeness. The same goes for our relationship with God. When we pray for God’s help or intervention, as the psalmist does today, we can do so confidently because we remember his past goodness: the baby that arrived safely, the job that came through, the illness that was healed. God’s kindness is both unshakable and everlasting; it is not only “from of old,” as the English translation has it, it is “from forever.” Past, present, and future merge in God’s chesed, the resonant Hebrew term for “steadfast loving kindness.” We can count on God to be compassionate, because he has always been that way.
God, Today I thank you for your steadfast, eternal, loving, and utterly trustworthy presence in my life. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030618.cfm
