Scripture:
Reflection:
O God, be merciful to me a sinner. –Luke 18:13
Lent is a time of the liturgical year that requires me to reflect on my journey to becoming the person that God created me to be, my relationship with God and those around me. The readings throughout Lent take us through different aspects of human failings or hurdles, as I like to call them. These hurdles are challenges to growth in our spiritual life. Today’s readings bring us to another hurdle, judgement, and our efforts to recognize our own sinfulness.
In the first reading, the prophet Hosea reminds us of the things that God wants from us. In this reading we hear the love and knowledge of God is worth more than sacrifices and that piety is shallow and fades away quickly. Knowing God through prayer and reflection can be worth more than our Lenten sacrifices. Taking time to “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps 46:11) can do more for our relationship with God than giving up sugar in our tea!
The Parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee point out the light and dark sides of humanity. The dark side is described as judging others by our own standards of how we live our spiritual life. The Pharisee rattles off all the tasks that make him a more worthy individual before God than the Tax Collector who is an outcast because he works for the Romans and takes the hard-earned money of the people. The Tax Collector takes on the physical posture of humility. He recognizes that he is a sinner and asks for forgiveness before God. This is also one of the qualities of the Saints. They knew and recognized that they were sinners, keeping their condition at the forefront of their minds every day. This allowed them to have humility and thus be able to open their hearts fully to God.
Humility is not about degrading ourselves. It is about how we think of ourselves in the presence of others. The readings today remind us that humility is one of the goals to have to allow us to enter more fully into the Light of Christ.
May your Lenten journey be fruitful.
Linda Schork is a theology teacher at Saint Xavier High School in Louisville, Kentucky.