Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

Today's Mass Readings

There is a contrast between the babbling that Jesus tells us to avoid in our prayer and the effective word which, Isaiah assures us, is God’s deed. God is the initiator of our lives; our work is to trust in the deed of God: “It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”

We’ve become accustomed, largely by the push of a button, to expect results from our actions. But what Jesus would have us learn is that our Father does not act at the push of a button. Rather, it is the mysterious relationship of Father and son, Parent and child. This means, time and patience, failure and learning, forgiveness, and effort—all that goes into the seed maturing.

The root attitude is expressed well by George Maloney in Jesus Set Me Free:
When we have the courage to enter into the presence of metanoia, the conversion or return to our true self, we begin to look honestly at our creatureliness, our ‘nothingness’. This nothingness is beyond our own rational control. It is a gift that the Fathers of the desert called penthos (an abiding sense of our inner, creaturely poverty before the rich lovingness of God.) This is given to the Anawim, the Remnant of God’s poor ones in spirit who dare to confront their non-being, their state of nothingness before God’s Allness.

Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB