Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
We’re barely a week into Lent and this about the time where I start wondering if I’m doing enough. I haven’t been giving up things over the past couple of years, opting instead to take on daily rosaries and going to daily mass when I can. I decided to do this a few years back when I realized that I was neglecting the “prayer” part of the fasting-praying-almsgiving program for Lent. I can’t say whether my “taking on” approach has been more fruitful than giving up something (usually a food or beer) but it’s helped me refocus.
Today’s Gospel is about praying. It’s the excerpt from Matthew when Jesus gives us the Our Father. Jesus’ giving us this prayer is in the context of Isaiah’s words from the first reading. The prophet provides us with the beautiful image of God’s words coming to the earth like rain, not returning “till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful.” So the words of Christ are meant to nourish us. We repeat the Our Father not to mimic Jesus but to enter into his holy way of living. Because it’s such a popular prayer, some of its more radical elements may get lost. The part that really jumps out to me is, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This is quite a thing to say to God, if you ask me. We’re tying our own forgiveness to our ability to forgive others. The beauty of grace, of course, is that it is freely given and (thank God) does not rely on anything we do. However, by giving us these words, Jesus is asking us to think about our own shortcomings as tied to those around us. The sin around us should never distract us from the sin within us. People who annoy us, argue with us, or even hate us, are never beyond the redemption of God.
I try to embark on the Lenten journey with an eye toward learning how to pray. I still feel like a child, learning how to do something daunting but necessary. Today’s Gospel reading is a real challenge to our Lenten prayer. It is a central prayer for our church and its contents are the central disposition for the Christian life: asking God for forgiveness in all of our shortcomings and for grace to forgive those whose shortcomings affect us.
- Katherine Schmidt