March 20/Fifth Tuesday of Lent O LORD, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you. Hide not your face from me in the day of my distress. ~ Ps 102.2-3 We’re not supposed to doubt that God hears us; we’re not supposed to question his whereabouts; we’re not supposed to cry, “How dare you?” It makes us uneasy…
March 19/Fifth Monday of Lent Solemnity of St. Joseph The promises of the LORD I will sing forever; through all generations my mouth shall proclaim your faithfulness. ~ Ps 89.2 In the long parade of human history, one generation’s unfinished business is inevitably carried over to the next. In the case of climate change or the national debt, this can…
March 17/Fourth Saturday of Lent O searcher of heart and soul, O just God. ~ Ps 7.9 Consider a jeweler examining a diamond. She holds the magnification loupe up to her eye in one hand, tilting and turning the stone around in the other. Through the other end of the loupe, her scrutinizing eye looks enormous and even scary. Now…
March 16/Fourth Friday of Lent The LORD confronts the evildoers, to destroy remembrance of them from the earth. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; and those who are crushed in spirit he saves. ~ Ps 34.17, 19 Does God really confront the evildoers? Or to take the more concrete Hebrew expression from today’s psalm, is “the face of the LORD…
March 15/Fourth Thursday of Lent Our fathers made a calf in Horeb and adored a molten image; They forgot the God who had saved them, who had done great deeds in Egypt. ~ Ps 106.19, 21 Today, let us walk for a moment in the sandals of the infamous children of Israel who fashioned a golden calf. Daunted by the…
March 14/Fourth Wednesday of Lent The LORD is good to all and compassionate toward all his works. The LORD is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth. ~ Ps 145.9, 18 Stephen Sondheim’s song “Finishing the Hat,” from the 1984 musical Sunday in the Park with George, is a paean to the…
March 13/Fourth Tuesday of Lent There is a river whose streams gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High. God is in its midst, it shall not be disturbed; God will help it at the break of dawn. ~ Ps 46.5-6 Peace is a scarce commodity in our lives. Whether it comes in the form of…
March 12/Fourth Monday of Lent For his anger lasts but a moment; a lifetime, his good will. At nightfall, weeping enters in, but with the dawn, rejoicing. ~ Ps 30.6 Sometimes the joy just plain disappears from our lives. Work isn’t going well, or there is a family problem, or we’re stuck on a project, or we’re experiencing one of…
March 10/Third Saturday of Lent For you are not pleased with sacrifices; should I offer a burnt offering, you would not accept it. My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn. ~ Ps 51.18-19 What does God want of us? Depending on the Christian faith tradition that we come…
March 9/Third Friday of Lent “If only my people would hear me, and Israel walk in my ways, I would feed them with the best of wheat, and with honey from the rock I would fill them.” ~ Ps 81.14, 17 Paul Tillich, the 20th-century German-American theologian, wrote eloquently of “the love that listens.” He saw reciprocal listening as the foundation…