March 14/Fourth Thursday of Lent
Our fathers made a calf in Horeb and adored a molten image;
They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. ~ Ps 106.19-20
It’s easy for us to sneer at the calf-worshiping children of Israel. We may regard ourselves as far too sophisticated to prostrate ourselves before a molten image. But as we rush out the door on a Sunday morning for the yoga studio or hiking trail, as we relentlessly pursue professional success at the expense of our relationships, as we obsessively curate our social media presence, we might pause to acknowledge these modern-day false gods. For we humans are quite adept at fashioning our own idols. Sometimes we put them on the shelf right next to God, parceling out our time to the various deities we follow. But sometimes, when we feel that what God asks of us is inconvenient or difficult, or challenges our comfort, we abandon him altogether for easier deities. Much less demanding are the gods of the golf course, the streaming services, or even, as the novelist Leigh Stein noted in a New York Times op-ed a couple of years ago, Instagram. Rarely do they challenge us to go beyond ourselves. But any gods that we create in our own image, no matter how shiny their surfaces or alluring their promises, will fail us. As C. S. Lewis observed in The Weight of Glory, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.” Only God, whose mystery and might are far beyond human telling, truly deserves our worship. Let us pray for the ability to recognize and dismantle our false gods and to bow down before the one who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
God, Keep my heart open to receive your word, and my knee bent to worship you in your glory, today and forevermore. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031424.cfm
To hear John Rogers’ a capella rendering of “Holy Spirit, Light Divine,” by Andrew Reed, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYJwj7fGgpQ