Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
One image that stands out today from our first reading and responsorial psalm is that of hardening the heart. Even in our culture today, thousands of years after Psalm 95 (our psalm for the day) was written, we know what it means to say that someone has a “hard heart.” The image of heart indicates something that is intimate; just think of how we say we “give our heart” to the ones we love – or think of the popularity of hearts as we approach Valentine’s Day.
But it may be that we don’t always know when we are starting to harden our hearts. It can be a gradual process, particularly as we start to grow in self-sufficiency and fail to recognize our dependence on God. One of the hallmarks of sin is that it indicates a kind of self-sufficiency; it’s a way of saying that we think we know a better way than God knows. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the stories of the Old Testament, where the people of Israel are constantly struggling to be faithful to God and yet erecting their own idols, imaging the gods of other nations, such as Egypt. In our first reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, he quotes Psalm 95, which is in reference to the people depending on other gods and hardening their hearts toward the one true God.
In contrast, consider our gospel passage from Mark. “If you wish, you can make me clean,” are the words of the leper (Mk 1:1). Those first words, “if you wish” are crucial here. This leper is not trying to bend God’s will to his will; rather he is submitting to God’s will (unlike the people of Israel who believed they could be self-sufficient by depending on other gods). “If you wish” is a prayer of hope and faith because the leper knows that Jesus has the power to heal him. But it is also a prayer of love because the leper is not trying to control Jesus. In such a situation, the leper could be selfish, but here he is really selfless, the picture of humility as he kneels before Jesus and begs. And after his healing, he cannot keep the miracle to himself; his love drives him to tell others of the power of Jesus. He is an evangelist, encouraging others to believe as he believed and to bring others to Christ.
In this season of Ordinary Time, when we count our weeks with the Lord, we must strive every day to submit ourselves to his will and to accept God for who God is – not a lucky charm, not a divine therapist, not a moral sage – but the divine Trinity who is our beginning and our end. We are not supposed to use God. We are supposed to let God use us. Today, let us contemplate on the words “if you wish.” May all our prayers today begin with these words that we may not harden our hearts to the God who is our very source of life and being.
Maria Morrow