March 25/Fourth Saturday of Lent
Feast of the Annunciation
Sacrifice and offering you do not delight in, but you have dug out my ears.
To do your will, O God, I delight in; your teaching is within my belly [lit. transl]. ~ Ps 40.7, 9
Obedience — how it goes against the human grain. We no sooner construct a set of rules or guidelines for the common good than we invent ways to circumvent or break them. Speed limits, tax codes, children’s bedtimes, hospital protocols, all are subject to our creative “workarounds,” or perhaps more accurately, our flaunting. In much the same way, we find loopholes in our promises to God. Some of us take the path of outright defiance and completely cut ourselves off from church-going and the practices of faith. Others may regularly attend Sunday services, presenting our envelopes and offerings while closing our ears and shutting our hearts to God’s true teachings. We show up at the required times and places, but devote our lives outside of the pews to chasing our own desires. We spend money on our own comfort and entertainment, diminishing our support of a charity in need; we spend time on social media, passing up meaningful conversation with a spouse or a child; we exert energy on professional advancement in ways that foster unhealthy competitiveness rather than productive collaboration. In short, we “do us” — and God wants no part of it. The offering he is looking for is the surrender of our willfulness and the humbling of our egos. We are invited, today, to listen and to heed — and as the psalmist colorfully puts it, God has even done us the courtesy of digging out our ears so that we can hear. The “delight” that both God and we experience — and the Hebrew verb is the same in these two verses, underscoring the point — is the mutual delight of a relationship in which both sides are fulfilling their promises of love and faithfulness.
Almighty God, Make me an instrument of your love, your peace, and your mercy, and grant that I may always seek to do your will. Amen.
To hear the Choir and congregation of Paisley Abbey (Scotland) sing “O Jesus, I Have Promised,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU_cev2ri90
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032523.cfm
