March 20/Fourth Saturday of Lent
Judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.
O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous,
you who test the hearts and minds, O righteous God. ~ Ps 7.9
Through the years, the strategy of “Bambi eyes,” a wide-eyed look intended to project an image of righteous innocence that conceals a duplicitous heart, has often been often deployed in my family, usually to no avail. I can almost imagine today’s psalmist raising Bambi eyes to God, pleading for God’s approval of his integrity and righteousness. But is he — are we — truly as blameless and pure as we purport to be? We may be able to fool others, but we will never fool God, who “tests the hearts and minds” with a scintillating eye. It is a prospect that might well make us uneasy. For the verb translated as “test” – a verb that in biblical usage nearly always has God as its subject – connotes intense scrutiny in order to determine the essential qualities of the thing scrutinized. To put it less formally, God is conducting a thorough spiritual testing of what in Hebrew literally means the “hearts and kidneys,” namely, the innermost self. God is not just giving us a cursory review; he is fixing his gaze intently upon us, piercing through our shell and burrowing into the soft, sensitive tissue within, the secret and shameful parts that we try to hide. Under such intense review, all of our flaws are exposed and visible to God. He searches out and finds those places in the heart where resentment, indifference, bitterness, anger and so many other flaws are buried. Mercifully, he does not discard us in our imperfection. Rather, he forgives and asks us to follow the right path. “God beholds you individually, whoever you are,” wrote 19th century cardinal and theologian John Henry Newman, “He sees you, and understands you, as He made you. . .You do not love yourself better than He loves you.”
O God, Searcher of the human heart, I ask you today for the clarity of vision to seek rightly and to love well, in union with your holy will. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032021.cfm
To hear the Choir of St. John’s College (Cambridge) sing “Lord Jesus, Think on Me,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwLJTtmKTY8
