Lectionary: 221
Cry out full-throated and unsparingly,
lift up your voice like a trumpet blast;
Tell my people their wickedness,
and the house of Jacob their sins.
lift up your voice like a trumpet blast;
Tell my people their wickedness,
and the house of Jacob their sins.
One of my favorite pastimes, one which occupies my mind endlessly, is faulting political activists. They might be professional politicians, special interest groups, bloggers, or professional buttinskis. I see in them bottomless pits of wickedness and sin. Their motives are totally dominated by greed and avarice.
There seems to be no harm in this pastime. They've asked for it, anyway, and they must have thick skins if they've decided to go into the public realm. As Harry Truman said, "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen."
But, if there seems to be no harm in this habit, there is anyway. And that's my failure to discover my own sins.
AA has a saying for that: Do your own inventory. Just because they're public figures several times removed from me doesn't give me license to ignore my own guilt.
My confessor has urged me to practice a daily examination of conscience. It's an ancient practice fallen on hard times but due for a revival. When our Buddhist friends and faux-Buddhist critics recommend awareness to us, Christians respond by becoming aware of our sins.
It comes with the awareness of God's goodness. Saint Francis was overwhelmed by God's Goodness as he pursued poverty. God continually surprised him with food when he was hungry, shelter when he was homeless, clothing when he was naked and friendship when he was lonely. Being penniless he was immune to thieves. Not even muggers would stoop so low as to pick on the wasted frame of the Saint.
But still he was tormented with temptations to ease, security, vanity and power; and this awareness of sin threw him all the more intently into the Merciful Heart of God. He found in God endless reserves of kindness.
In fact he knew God's goodness as few have ever even suspected it.
That discovery is ours for the asking during Lent. We have only to ask God to reveal our sins to us through the practice of daily examination of conscience.
Ouch.
Ahh!
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.