Thursday - February 18, 2021
I travel, work, suffer my weak health, meet with a thousand difficulties, but all these are nothing, for this world is so small. To me, space is an imperceptible object, as I am accustomed to dwell in eternity.
-- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini
TODAY'S READINGS
February 18, 2021
Thursday after Ash
Wednesday
Lectionary: 220
Moses said to the people:
“Today I have set before you
life and prosperity, death and doom.
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today,
loving him, and walking in his ways,
and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,
you will live and grow numerous,
and the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,
but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,
I tell you now that you will certainly perish;
you will not have a long life
on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.
I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:
I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.
For that will mean life for you,
a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore
he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
Responsorial Psalm Ps 32:1-2, 5, 11
R. (40:5a) Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Verse before the Gospel Mt 4:17
Repent, says the Lord;
the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Gospel Lk 9:22-25
Jesus said to his disciples:
“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
Then he said to all,
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?”
Embracing the Cross of Self-denial
Walking close to Jesus is not easy. In fact, it's the most challenging way to live! Jesus describes how to follow him in today's Gospel reading. He says that we have to deny ourselves. Oh phooey, that's no fun!
No one likes to embrace their crosses (not even Jesus). We want to get rid of them, but the only way to experience the thrill of resurrection victory is to go through the cross. This means accepting our crosses instead of looking for the easy, most comfortable life.
Can you embrace your difficulties as you would a good friend? Indeed, that is what trials are: They are good friends if we let them bring us closer to God, if we let them mentor us into greater holiness, if we let them stretch our ability to love and to forgive those who make our journey unpleasant.
This is what it means to deny ourselves. It does not mean ignoring our own personal needs. Nor does it mean treating ourselves poorly. It does not mean that we become our own worst enemy.
Denying ourselves means that we "lose our lives", as Jesus describes it, in the crosses that we embrace rather than fight to protect the lives we'd prefer to have. Don't we want everything to go our way? And when things don't go our way, we want to cajole and manipulate and pray and plead to protect the illusion of how our lives "should" be (it's an illusion because it's our idea, but it's not reality), right?
We could, if we put enough effort into it, shape our lives into what we think is best for us. But what is the cost of that? Jesus says it destroys us. We lose touch with God. We lose human relationships. We lose ourselves in the process of getting what we want.
In today's first reading, Moses invites us to choose between God's ways and our own ways. He points out the advantages and disadvantages of our decisions.
Of course we do want to do things God's way. We know that he's smarter than we are. But embracing our crosses and denying ourselves is painful, oh so painful!
There is only one way to do it: We must also embrace Jesus (and thus let him embrace us) as we cry our way through the Way of the Cross.
As we proclaim in today's responsorial Psalm, happy are we when we hope in the Lord. The joy that's available in suffering comes from knowing that Jesus is on our side, and from trusting our Father for a good future, and from being rooted in the Holy Spirit who affirms us, and from realizing that Jesus the Great Redeemer will transform every curse into a blessing.
Today's Prayer
Dear Lord Jesus, help me to understand the importance of letting You reign in my life. I want to follow You at all times because I need You. Thank You for hearing my prayer. Amen.
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The mother of Jesus promised St. Dominic that, “one day through the rosary & the scapular I shall save the world!”
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