Thursday after Ash Wednesday
As Easy As Pulling the Plug?

Readings: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6; Luke 9:22-25

Moses does make it sound very simple, doesn’t he? After about forty years wandering in the wilderness the people of Israel have finally arrived at the threshold of the Promised Land. Here they will meet many different peoples, each worshipping its own particular god. And, like a devoted parent, familiar with a little child’s tendency to stray, Moses is careful to lay things out in very simple terms. There are only two ways to go: the people can either obey the commandments of the Lord, or disobey them and choose to follow other gods. The first option will bring blessings and long life. The second will bring a curse and lead to death. Life or death. Nothing could be clearer. But clarity in theory doesn’t always translate into ease of practice.

Yesterday I was called to anoint someone in the Acute Care Unit of the Emergency Room. The patient had been admitted early in the morning after suffering a heart attack. He had subsequently been placed on a ventilator and the family was informed that nothing more could be done for him, as he was already comatose. Now came the difficult decision: whether and when to pull the plug. The eldest son was present when I arrived. It was heartrending to watch him struggle with the decision. He told me that both his parents had been planning to emigrate to the USA in less than a fortnight’s time. Why did this have to happen now? I don’t want to lose him, he said. Through tears of pain and anguish, even though he knew quite well what the doctors had said, he tried in vain to revive his father. Life or death. The choices were clear. But could anything be more difficult?

Although obedience to God is ultimately the life-giving option, it’s not always clear what this choice implies. And neither is it easy to put it into practice even when things may seem clear. Which is why the first reading needs to be complemented by Jesus’ words in the gospel of today. The Son of Man must suffer greatly… If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself… For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it…

In the Emergency Room, after we had anointed his sick father, the elder son did eventually come to a decision. It was obviously very painful, but he said he had decided to do what would make his father most happy. He was willing to let his father go. It was indeed a great leap that he was making, a major shift in outlook. From a grief-stricken child anxious to keep his beloved father by his side at all costs, he had finally chosen to relieve his father’s suffering, to allow his father go to his heavenly reward, to let his father die. And the dying was not the father’s alone. The son too was dying to himself, to his own need to cling to his beloved father. He was courageously taking up the cross that was being presented to him that day. Neither a simple nor an easy thing to do

Of course, we don’t face such major decisions everyday. Perhaps some of us don’t even face them once in a lifetime. And yet, isn’t it true that, on a daily basis, we are somehow asked to choose between right and wrong, between life and death? And isn’t it also true that it’s not always clear what is the right thing to do, just as it’s seldom easy do it? Isn’t this why, in the opening prayer today, we asked that everything we do might begin with God’s inspiration, continue with God’s help, and reach perfection under God’s guidance? Isn’t this why we need this great season of Lent, to better attune our heart to God and to beg for the courage to walk in God’s ways?

How are we being invited to choose life today?

Ash Wednesday
Through the Doorway

Readings: Joel 2:12-18; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14 and 17; 2 Corinthians 5:20—6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Some time ago, I took a series of psychological tests. In one of these tests I was presented with several pictures in black and white and asked to write a short story about each of them. Today I’m reminded especially of one of those pictures. See if you can imagine it as I describe it to you. The whole background of the picture is dark, except for what looks like a doorway that is lit. And, entering through this doorway is the figure of a person, someone who looks to be passing out of the darkness and into the light. As we begin our great season of Lent with this celebration of Ash Wednesday, I wonder if this same picture might not help us to write a story about the meaning of our celebration. As you know, most stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. Perhaps our Lenten story will be the same.

Our story begins with our presence here today. We have come here for Mass and, shortly, we will have ashes imposed on our foreheads. This is how Lent begins. It begins with God’s people performing certain right actions. These actions include the three traditional practices that we heard Jesus talk about in the gospel: prayer and fasting and almsgiving. And, as we know, there are different ways of performing these actions. We can, for example, pray in many different ways: with the rosary or with scripture, in song or in silence, accompanied or alone. There is also a wide variety of ways in which to fast and to give alms. We can curb our appetites for food or for entertainment, just as we can give of our money or our time and attention. The important thing is that we do these actions in ways that enable us to renew our relationships to God, to ourselves and to one another.

Which brings us to the middle of our Lenten story. As Jesus reminds us in the gospel today, it is possible to do all the right actions for all the wrong reasons. Having begun our Lenten story with right actions, we need now to move on to an appropriate middle. Right actions must be motivated by the right intention. As we heard in the first reading: rend your hearts and not your garments… In order for our Lenten discipline to bear the desired fruit, we need to have broken hearts. And the readings also tell us how. Not only do they remind us of our deep need for God – why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ – but they also convict us of our sinfulness – against you only have I sinned… And, most importantly, they remind us too of the full extent of God’s mercy toward us, his wayward children: for our sake (God) made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him…

Moved by these considerations of God’s love in the face of our own sinfulness, we hope that our prayer and fasting and almsgiving will help us write a fitting ending to our story. We hope that, motivated by the right intention, our right actions will ultimately lead us to the right destination. As our opening prayer expressed it so well, we are hoping that God will bestow sight to the darkness of sinful eyes so that, with hearts broken by contrition, we can see more clearly the way to the place we wish to go. What is this destination? What is this happy ending? We heard it described in the second reading, in Paul’s words of exhortation: we implore you… to be reconciled with God… For now is the day of salvation.

Right actions, the right motivation and the right destination: collectively, might these not provide us with a possible format for writing our own Lenten story? In addition, there is yet another consideration that might help us. Recalling the picture with which we began, perhaps we might see that Lent is not just a question of our walking out of darkness and into the light, but also of our opening the doors of our hearts and our lives, so that the God of Light might enter and illumine our darkness. Isn’t this the reason why God made him to be sin who did not know sin?

How do you intend to write your Lenten story today?

Tuesday in the 4th Week of Ordinary Time (II)
Memorial of St. Agatha, Virgin & Martyr
The View From The Top

Readings: 2 Samuel 18:9-10, 14b, 24-25a, 30–19:3; Psalm 86:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Mark 5:21-43

Those who have ever climbed a high mountain or been up a tall building will know how different things look from the top. At the bottom your view is obscured by so many different things. But at the top you are able to feast your eyes on a much wider view. At the top the same things that looked so big and formidable from the ground suddenly seem so trivial and small. Is it any accident, then, that Jesus’ most important sermon in the gospel of Matthew – the beginning of which we heard on Sunday – is preached at the top of a mountain? In the bible, the mountain is where God reveals the divine view of things.

Even so, you don’t literally have to climb a mountain to see and hear God. There are mountains of different sorts. Consider the situation of King David in today’s first reading. Everyone thinks they are bringing him good news when they inform him of the death of Absalom. But they are wrong. They are only looking at things at ground level. From there, Absalom is a treasonous rebel, a dangerous troublemaker, a serious threat to Kingdom and Crown, someone to be exterminated at all costs. But David sees things from a different vantage. Absalom’s death sharpens David’s vision, just as his rebellion might have served to obscure it. Even though it means victory for the king, the killing of Absalom evokes no joy in David, not even relief, but instead deep sorrow. Grief places David on a lofty height from which he sees beyond the fleeting to that which is enduring. The impact of Absalom's death enables David to forget the terrible treachery of a subject towards his king, and to feel only the weight of the tender affection of a father for his child. If only I had died instead of you, Absalom, my son, my son!

Climbing a mountain is often difficult. And even if the view from the top may be breathtaking, it is not always easy to bear.

The gospel presents us with yet another kind of mountain. Commentators have likened this rather long passage to a sandwich. The important bit is to be found in the middle, bracketted by the ongoing story of the healing of Jairus’ daughter. But from a non-expert’s point of view, the passage can perhaps just as easily be seen as a literary mountain, affording the best view from the top. Whether sandwich or mountain, the crucial verse is clear. It is found in Jesus words to the woman with the haemorrhage: Daughter, your faith has saved you…

If David is able to see clearly from the mountaintop of his grief, then Jesus invites his listeners to enjoy the breathtaking panorama of faith. Viewed from this high vantage point, apparently insurmountable obstacles begin to pale into insignificance. From here, the mere caress of a garment has power to cure a chronic and painful affliction. On this mountaintop, even the dead can be raised to life. Do not be afraid; just have faith…

And how can we forget that it is also this same faith-inspired viewpoint that ultimately emboldens Jesus to walk the way to Calvary, to climb the wood of the Cross, to humbly submit to the One who alone has the power to raise him on the third day?

As we find ourselves on the threshold of the great season of Lent, perhaps it will do us good prayerfully to consider what mountains we are being invited to climb, what breathtaking views to enjoy, today…

Monday in the 4th Week of Ordinary Time (II)
Getting Your Hands Dirty

Readings: 2 Samuel 15:13-14, 30; 16:5-13; Psalm 3:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Mark 5:1-20

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall have mercy shown them. This is one of the Beatitudes that we heard proclaimed at Mass yesterday. It is one of the eight (or nine, depending on how you count them) crucially important statements of Jesus that point us the way into the Kingdom of Heaven. But what, we may wonder, does it mean to be merciful? What does it look like when mercy is shown to others? Both our readings today help us to deepen our meditation on these questions.

In the first reading, David demonstrates for us one dimension of mercy. Consider his situation. Although he is fighting a rebellion led by his own son, David is still ruler of the kingdom. And although he is fleeing his own capital city, we’re told that all the soldiers, including the royal guard, were on David’s right and on his left. Thus when Shimei starts throwing stones and hurling insults and curses at him, David could very easily have had him killed without a second thought. Instead, David spares him. We may wonder why. Perhaps it was David’s sorrow at the painful treachery of his son. Perhaps it was his appreciation of the partial truth in Shimei’s accusations. It also seems clear that David’s reaction had something to do with his relationship with God: the Lord has told him (to curse)… Whatever the exact reason, David models for us the mercy that endures insult without retaliation, the mercy which lets people alone.

But this far from exhausts the mystery of mercy. Jesus shows us something more. Just as Shimei ambushes David in the first reading, so does the demoniac accost Jesus in the gospel. And yet, not only does Jesus not punish him for his rude intrusion, but he actually frees him from his enslavement to the legion of unclean spirits that have been forcing him to constantly do harm to himself and to live among the dead. In so doing, Jesus goes beyond the mercy shown by David, the mercy that only lets people alone. Instead, what Jesus models for us is the mercy that gets involved. It is a mercy is not afraid to get its hands dirty, that is willing to somehow enter into the suffering of the other. It is a mercy that endures not just the discomfort of the demoniac’s presence, but also the rejection that results from his healing: seized with fear, the townsfolk began to beg Jesus to leave their district. And it is through this mercy that the demoniac is led out from the isolation of the tombs and back into the embrace of his community: go home to your family… Freed from spiritual bondage, the once possessed man is now filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered to bear witness to the goodness of God: he went off and began to proclaim in the Decapolis what Jesus had done for him…

Even more importantly, the demoniac’s story points to what Jesus does for all of us. It recalls the mercy that God has shown us in Christ, the mercy that moves God to enter into our human reality, to become one like us, even to the extent of suffering, dying, and rising on the third day. The demoniac’s story reminds us that we have all benefited from this mercy, this divine willingness to get its hands dirty. And, more likely than not, we will also quite easily recall instances in our respective histories when this same mercy has been shown to us also through others who have been willing to accompany us in our struggles.

Recalling these memories of mercy, will we not, in our turn, find ourselves moved to show mercy to others, to get involved in some way in their situations, even at some cost to ourselves?

How are we being invited to be merciful to others today?

Friday in the 3rd Week of Ordinary Time (II)
Tale of Two Trees

Readings: 2 Samuel 1:1-4a, 5-10a, 13-17; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6a, 6bcd-7, 10-11; Mark 4:26-34

Some might recall that not too many days ago we had occasion to reflect upon the similarities between a vibrant spiritual life and a thriving tree. Our readings today invite reflection along the same lines by presenting for our attention not one but two distinct species of tree. In particular, it will be helpful for us to consider their similarities and differences.

One tree is found in the gospel. Here, in Jesus’ parables, we find the tree that is the Kingdom of God. Among the characteristics of this tree, Jesus is careful to highlight its amazing power of growth. Like the seed that is scattered indiscriminately, the Kingdom grows secretly, of its own accord. Its power to germinate is innate. It only requires the right soil. And when it does find favorable conditions it’s capable of phenomenal growth. What starts out as the smallest of all seeds becomes the largest of plants. Finally, we find what is perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of this tree. When fully grown, it provides a dwelling for the birds of the sky. It is, after all, the Tree of Life.

The other type of tree is found in the first reading. Like the first tree, it too is capable of growth. But its growth is of a far more sinister kind. What begins as a casual attraction to a beautiful woman escalates into adultery, and then deception, and finally murder. Perhaps what’s most striking about this insidious progression are the terrible demands it makes upon the one involved. Unlike the natural growth of the Tree of Life, this second tree grows only at the expense of the one who tends it. Like the strange plant in the Little Shop of Horrors, it feeds upon the life-blood of those around it. And once it’s fully grown, it bears fruit in alienation and destruction. It’s no surprise then that it should be called the tree of death.

Faced with these two specimens, what more is there for us to do today, than to consider carefully the kinds of trees that we may be cultivating, knowingly or unknowingly, in the gardens of our own lives?