March 5/First Thursday of Lent
Your right hand delivers me. Forsake not the work of your hands. ~ Ps 138.7-8
Take a moment to look at your hands. Think about everything you might do with them this day. You may put them together in prayer before you rise out of bed. You may create (making a meal or typing a memo), or comfort (caressing a spouse’s furrowed forehead, knocking on the door of a lonely person), establish order (reconciling a checkbook, emptying an inbox, cleaning off a cluttered counter), or express emotion (clenching in anger, putting them on your hips in exasperation) – and that’s just the beginning. Our hands are powerful instruments of our agency in the world. So, too, the biblical writers envisioned the hand of God as a tool of God’s creative power and loving protection. Those divine hands fashioned humanity out of dust (see: Genesis); God’s right hand led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and delivered them from their enemies (see: Exodus). We are, as today’s psalm affirms, the work of God’s hands, and he loves as his creatures, regardless of our imperfections. We are called to place ourselves in God’s hands. But it can sometimes be a challenge for us to do so. We may have had experiences in our lives that leave us feeling as if the divine hand has brushed us aside or even been raised against us. But today’s psalm assures us that God’s “kindness,” or chesed, has no expiration date, and that God will not let us dwell indefinitely in sorrow and pain. The promise of the Christian life is that God does not forsake his creatures, and that he will, through his love for each of us, stretch out his saving hand and deliver us from our human sinfulness into an existence of radiant joy.
O Lord of the loving embrace, Give me the courage to commend my spirit into your hands, today, tomorrow, and always. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030520.cfm
