Daily Retreat 03/23/06

2006 Mar 23 Thu: Lenten Weekday/ Toribio de Mogrovejo, bp

Jer 7: 23-28/ Ps 94(95): 1-2. 6-7. 8-9/ Lk 11: 14-23

From today’s readings: "Thus says the LORD: Listen to My voice.... Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert, where your fathers tempted Me; they tested Me, though they had seen My works..... Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me, scatters!"

Turn Back to the Lord or Turn Your Back to the Lord

The whole season of Lent is an earnest call to repentance, the admonition to turn back to the Lord with all our hearts. Throughout these days, the scripture readings continually return us to this central message, which is also re–echoed in the Church’s liturgical prayers.

Yet in spite of the simple, unflagging insistence of this penitential invitation, many fail to hear it or, even worse, fail to act on it, effectively turning their back to the Lord, instead of turning back to the Lord! This is the complaint voiced in the first reading: Thus says the LORD: "This is what I commanded My people: Listen to My voice.... Walk in all the ways that I command you.... But they obeyed not, nor did they pay heed. They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts and turned their backs, not their faces, to Me."

It is, of course, easy to point to so many other people we know who are turning their backs to the Lord. But, while you and I do have an obligation to help such people hear the Lenten call to repentance, our primary responsibility is to commit OURSELVES whole-heartedly to repentance! As the half-way point of Lent approaches, it’s time to honestly consider how seriously we’re taking that call to turn back to the Lord, and to repent of even the small ways in which we’re still turning our backs to the Lord!