Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

Today's Mass Readings

Woody Allen famously said: “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” To what would we attribute the other twenty percent? The Prophet Jeremiah speaking for the Lord would say it is this: Listening to the voice of God. Only if we listen to God’s word then the Lord will be our God, we will be His people, and then divine ways and prosperity will follow. Showing up may not be enough, as the prophecy continues: “They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts, and turned their backs, not their faces to me.”

So when we show up, do we listen? Engagement takes an act of the will, that is, choosing it. Fr. Larry Richards tells the story of creating a perpetual adoration chapel for his parish. He said he wanted to write on the wall: “Shut up.” This is because we have a tendency to fill up our prayer with our words, petitions, and the noise that plagues our anxieties. Fr. Richards settled on, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). In any case, that twenty percent of active listening requires silence.

In Isaiah, the Lord promises that His divine Word would come like rain to water the earth, and would not return to heaven until it had fulfilled its purpose. Gentle and constant rains can soften hard earth. Our hardened hearts must be softened and tilled, but then the seed of the word must bring forth a harvest. The Eternal Word become flesh as our Savior, Jesus Christ, gives everyone His own divine power to bear good fruit connected to Him. Nevertheless, he will not force us. Let us choose to go the entire hundred percent and bring about the harvest of the kingdom.

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB