Daily Retreat 03/31/06

2006 Mar 31 Fri: Lenten Weekday. Day of abstinence from meat (age 14 and up).

Wis 2: 1a. 12-22/ Ps 33(34): 17-18. 19-20. 21 and 23/ Jn 7: 1-2. 10. 25-30

From today’s readings: "Their wickedness blinded them, and they knew not the hidden counsels of God.... The LORD is close to the brokenhearted.... they tried to arrest Him, but no one laid a hand upon Him, because His hour had not yet come..."

Just One

Sometimes, scripture offers an insight into wickedness - not to encourage us in that path, of course, but rather, just to help us to see evil plainly, and then, with the help of God, uproot it from our lives.

The first reading, from the book of Wisdom, presents the thought process of those wicked men who determine to "beset the just One, because He is obnoxious to us." Clearly, their description of the "just One" prophetically fits Jesus perfectly, and all the evil schemes mentioned were carried out against our Lord literally, for they "put Him to the test with revilement and torture," and "condemn[ed] Him to a shameful death."

As repulsive as such blatant wickedness is to us, we do well to thoroughly examine our consciences for any traces of such thoughts before quickly and self-righteously assuming that scripture is not at all referring to us here. For it is a matter of our fallen human nature that, too often when you and I hear about or come in contact with a person living a more virtuous life than we ourselves have lived, instead of being inspired by such moral excellence, we are miffed by the contrast with our own failings, and so we seek to throw aspersions of hypocrisy or undercut the impressiveness of the "just one’s" virtue in some other way.

For example, I’ve noted times in the past when, after I’ve come across a person who is much more scrupulous about copyright laws than I am, or more generous in personal willingness to help homeless people, that I’ll find myself either pitying such a person’s naivete, or calling to mind some apparent character flaw, thereby distracting me from acting on the pricks to my own conscience. Then too, I’ve often marveled at how many people will become hotly self-defensive or coldly aloof when I even obliquely, and in an unthreatening impersonal manner, bring up topics such as confession or contraception.

So, scripture warns us against being blinded by our own iniquities - rather, we need to be continually enlightened by the splendor of truth and virtue, whether the example comes from the pages of the Bible, or from the lives of saints and contemporary "just ones" God sends to inspire us.