Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent

Lectionary: 238

For your name's sake, O Lord, do not deliver us up forever,

or make void your covenant.

Do not take away your mercy from us,

for the sake of Abraham, your beloved,

Isaac your servant, and Israel your holy one,

To whom you promised to multiply their offspring

like the stars of heaven,

We should hear desperation in Daniel's prayer; it finds an echo in the desperate pleas of the two servants in Jesus' parable. The debtors face dreadful consequences if their petitions are refused. Daniel's nation faces annihilation.

Most of us can remember the feeling of children when we were in trouble. You probably didn’t use the current expression, “I am dead meat!” but you know the feeling. But, despite our fear, unless we suffered a truly traumatic childhood, we expected mercy and received it.

Daniel’s prayer carries both connotations: dread and confidence. The story was written in the second century before Christ, long after the Babylonian Captivity. So, yes, the Jews had survived that crisis. Daniel was long dead; and Babylonia, an ancient memory. But no, they faced another, equally hostile enemy under the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (167–164 B.C.) This tyrant succeeded the Greek conqueror, Alexander the Great, and tried to impose his Hellenic gods, culture and morals on the Jews. The Maccabean books record their suffering,

“And there was great mourning throughout all Israel, and the rulers and the elders groaned. Young women and men languished, and the beauty of the women faded. Every bridegroom took up lamentation, while the bride sitting in her chamber mourned, And the land quaked on account of its inhabitants, and all the house of Jacob was clothed with shame.

We're all familiar with the visions of crisis brought to our attention through the news. They come from within the United States and from around the world. They include political, economic, military, and natural catastrophes. Some are happening at this moment, others are pending.

Most of us recall personal crises involving our health, family, neighbors or finances. Some of them resembled the current crises in today's news. We feel especial compassion for the victims. But, thank God, the moment passed and we survived.

Can we recall the alarm, fear and dread of those moments?

Can we bring that intensity to our routine prayer?

True, we don't need operatic drama. Getting hysterical never helps.

But neither should we babble our prayers to get through them.

Today's gospel demands self-examination. Am I holding a grudge against anyone? Isn't it time I let it go? How much longer do I intend to carry this absurd baggage? As I set out in the morning commute, facing the ever-present possibility of a fatal accident, do I need to hug this thing to my chest?

A good resentment doesn't need a foreign oppressor like the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar or the Seleucid Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Nor even a homegrown tyrant like Herod the Great. Any enemy in my own home, church or office will do.

Likewise, the faithful may enjoy the freedom of the children of God under any circumstance, as the scriptures and the saints demonstrate. So long as I am willing to live sine proprio, as Saint Francis and Saint Clare taught, I can find the freedom to repent, grieve, breathe, laugh, and sing.

("Sine proprio" is Franciscan for "without property." Sometimes I treasure my resentments, grievances, and grudges like personal possessions, more than life itself.) 

When desperation drives me to let it go, I wonder why I clung to it so long.

"For freedom Christ set us free!" Saint Paul said, "so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery!"