March 2/Second Tuesday of Lent
“Why do you recite my statutes, and profess my covenant with your mouth, Though you hate discipline and cast my words behind you?
To him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God.” ~ Ps 50.16-17, 23
The other day during a phone conversation, a friend heard me commenting about someone in words that were less than charitable. He jested, “Are you going to put that into your Lenten reflections?” Even as I laughed, I ruefully recognized an all-too-familiar gap between what I say and what I do — or as one biblical commentator summed up today’s psalm, the “disparity between confession and conduct.” Like the ancient Israelites whom God takes to task in an absolutely excoriating indictment today, I had failed, as I so often do, to go the right way. It is a common human plight. We may be able to recite the Ten Commandments perfectly — but do we truly honor the Sabbath? Have we not “killed” with a sharp tongue? Have we not envied a friend’s achievement, a neighbor’s new car — or a family member’s vaccine eligibility, as reported recently in the Wall Street Journal? We put on a show of goodness, hoping to convince others that we are well-intentioned, fundamentally virtuous, and utterly upright. But “beneath the clean outer garment,” as the great 20th-century Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner wrote, “could be hiding a heart that lacks God and true love.” Despite our covenantal malpractice, our breach of contract with God, he chooses not to pronounce sentence. Rather, he counsels us to make it right, to give him sincere hearts and devout spirits, to follow the path he lays out for us. God does not need our flowery words, what Shakespeare in Love’s Labor’s Lost called “taffeta phrases, silken terms precise.” God needs our faithfulness, our energy, and our commitment to practice the Gospel, not merely preach it. That is the way that leads to salvation.
Lord Jesus Christ, Grant that I may preach your word and share your message through my actions, not merely my words. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030221.cfm
To hear the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, performing Thomas Attwood’s setting of Psalm 50, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddUlZbcBQ_s
