5 March 2015
Thursday of the Second Week of Lent
“Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.” The responsorial psalm in today’s Mass sums up both readings. We cannot “trust in human beings” is what the Lord says in the First Reading. And note what he says to the rich man about his five brothers in the Gospel.
We are such complicated creatures. That is why the Lord says: “I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart.” That is, only he is able to judge our deepest thoughts and inmost feelings. If we seek happiness and fulfillment from anyone or anything apart from him we end up standing in “a lava waste, a salt and empty earth.”
Prayer is what enables us to express our Lazarus-like poverty. It makes us like the well-watered tree in the first reading. That is, receptive to grace “in the year of drought, it shows no distress, but still bears fruit.” Today, let us pray for those who live without hope, and especially for those who, seeming, die without it.