March 22/Third Tuesday of Lent
Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation. ~ Ps 25.4-5
Other than my family and a cleric or two, no group of people has been as important to me as teachers, from my 5th grade reading teacher to the Dante scholar at Yale Divinity School who guided me through Dante’s Inferno and Purgatory up to the heights of Paradise. What they shared was not only a passion for their subject, whether it was Shakespeare or Roman Catholic ethics, but a love for me as their student, and care for my well-being. As I talk with teachers and educators about the challenges of the past two years— ever-shifting COVID guidance, angry parents, kids falling behind, no free time for planning, or even exhaling — I am filled with admiration and gratitude for their commitment to their students and their refusal to give up (and filled equally with compassion for those who feel that they simply cannot go on). The love and dedication that teachers and administrators have shown in this incredibly difficult period are gifts to our world. Today, our psalm invites us to think about God, too, as our teacher — like human teachers, filled with love for his field (all creation) and for his students (all of his creatures). We will not emerge from God’s classroom knowing how to conjugate a verb, or solve a geometry theorem. But we will learn what is most important: the ways of God, the paths of God, the truth of God. As German theologian and priest Romano Guardini wrote, “None of the great things in human life springs from the intellect; every one of them issues from the heart and its love.” It is in the divine classroom that we experience God’s heart; and it is from that classroom that we can take his lessons of love and share them with the world.
God, Through and in prayer, teach me your love. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032222.cfm
To hear the Concords, a 1960s Christian beat band, sing “Teach Me Thy Way,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sGnR1Za2zU
