February 27/First Saturday of Lent
Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole heart. ~ Ps 119.2
How many of us can honestly say that we seek God with our whole hearts? Do we make a sincere effort to set time aside each day for prayer and reflection? Do we follow our parish services online or (if we are lucky) attend in person? Do we truly pay attention to the presence of God in our lives and in our world, or have we put our daily routine on autopilot? As the 20th century French philosopher Simone Weil said, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Sometimes we have no choice about where to focus that attention — a child who needs us, work deadlines that must be met, a house repair that has to be completed. But not everything that commandeers our attention is necessary, and each of us can usually find a few minutes every day. How we spend those minutes matters. For as the theoretical physicist Michael Goldhaber recently observed, “One of the most finite resources in the world is human attention.” Where will we focus ours? It may be exercise, or Netflix, or perhaps we let ourselves be drawn down into the rabbit warren of the internet. To put these distractions aside and seek God with our whole hearts isn’t always appealing. It’s far less challenging to hit “Next Episode” and slouch on the couch for another 53 minutes than to shut down our computers and spend a few minutes in silent prayer. But we only have so much time, and we cannot do both. The psalmist affirms that the way of the blessed — that word āšrē again — is to seek God with our whole hearts. Or to put it another way, that is the highest and best use of our attention, and our time. Let us begin that episode of our lives today.
Steadfast Lord, Inspire me with the courage to put my whole heart into loving and worshiping you above all things in my life. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022721.cfm
To hear the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus sing “Beati Immaculati” by Tomás Luis de Victoria, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTcIWKR84a4
