Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
WORD FROM GOD AND WORD TO GOD
God speaks his word to people in many ways: first of all, his word-in-action, that is, his saving deeds; secondly, his words written down in the Bible. Above all, God speaks his living Word, Jesus Christ.
God’s word can be heard only and find resonance when it takes on flesh and blood – when it becomes incarnate – in the lives of people and vibrates with human thought and feeling. If so, one can respond to it with prayerful words of recognition and with the living prayer of deeds. Prayer is our echo to God’s word and so are our deeds.
In this Eucharistic celebration, God speaks his word to us in the readings and he gives us his living Word in the Eucharistic bread.
Reading 1 Is 55:10-11
“I don’t think the way you think.
The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
God’s Decree.
“For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.
Gospel Mt 6:7-15
“The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this:
Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what’s best—
as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You’re in charge!
You can do anything you want!
You’re ablaze in beauty!
Yes. Yes. Yes.
“In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part.
Prayer
Lord God,
you speak your mighty word to us,
but we cannot hear it,
unless it stirs our lives
and is spoken in human terms.
Keep speaking your word to us, Lord,
and open our hearts to it,
that it may bear fruit in us
when we do your will
and carry out what we are sent to do.
We ask you this through your living Word,
Jesus Christ, our Lord.
1st Week of Lent –Tuesday
28 February 2023
Matthew 6: 7-15
“I dare to call him Father.”
If yesterday’s gospel reading highlighted the Lenten practice of almsgiving and service of the needy, this morning’s gospel highlights another important Lenten practice: prayer. In the gospel, Jesus declares that, when it comes to prayer, many words are not needed.
Today’s passage is a catechesis on prayer. It is a prayer and a lesson on how to pray. In the early Church, the catechumens directly learned this prayer from the mouth of the bishop and prayed it together as a profession of faith. During the Easter Vigil, they recited it for the first time together with the communities after their baptism.
Jesus teaches us to address God as “our Father.” He wants us to stand before the Father confidently and ask for what we need to live as his sons and daughters. No other religion except Christianity presents God as the Father and Mother of the people.
When we ask: ‘Hallowed be your name,’ we declare to the Father our willingness to glorify his name and to collaborate with him in fulfilling his promises of “you shall be my people and I will be your God” (Ezk. 36:23-28).
“Thy kingdom come,” we pray. With Jesus, the Kingdom of God has already come. The time of waiting is over. However, we continue to pray for its coming because it must develop and grow in every person as a seed of goodness, love, reconciliation, and peace. Prayer makes us discern between the values of this world and the values of the Kingdom of God.
We cannot recite the Lord’s Prayer with sincerity if we think only of our own bread, are greedy for possession and anxious about tomorrow, forget the poor, and neglect social justice. Paraphrasing the Lord’s prayer would mean to say, “Help me, Father, to be content with the necessary, to be free from the bondage of greed and strengthen me to share with the poor.”
God’s forgiveness has only one requirement – to love and forgive our brothers and sisters and be reconciled with them first.
The temptation from which we ask the Lord to deliver us does not refer to any minor weaknesses, struggles of life or persecutions. They do make us stumble and can choke the seed of the Word of God in us. But Jesus wants us to pray that we must be kept away from the temptation of abandoning our faith in the loving and merciful Father.
Prolonged prayers are not intended to persuade God to change his plans! Prayer does not change God; instead, it opens our minds and changes our hearts.