Saturday of the Second Week of Lent

Lectionary: 235

Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock of your inheritance,
That dwells apart in a woodland,
in the midst of Carmel.
Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old;
As in the days when you came from the land of Egypt, show us wonderful signs.


I will hang my reflection today on Micah's simple expression, "...show us wonderful signs." If we don't see the signs we don't get the message. And then we are lost indeed.
But these signs are seen only with eyes of faith. The Holy Spirit comes to the willing and opens our eyes to see what others habitually, sometimes resolutely, overlook.
The sign may be today's extraordinary, but all too familiar, parable of the Prodigal Son. Or should it be called the "Prodigal Father?" Or, "the Resentful Older Brother?" We might ponder this parable for years and never come to the end of its wonders. (For several of my reflections on it, click here!)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us of many signs, especially of the Holy Name of Jesus,

❡432: The name "Jesus" signifies that the very name of God is present in the person of his Son, made man for the universal and definitive redemption from sins. It is the divine name that alone brings salvation, and henceforth all can invoke his name, for Jesus united himself to all men through his Incarnation, so that "there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." 

 The Catechism also speaks of the Seven Sacraments as signs:

SECTION TWO: THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
❡1210 Christ instituted the sacraments of the new law. There are seven: Baptism, Confirmation (or Chrismation), the Eucharist, Penance, the Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony. The seven sacraments touch all the stages and all the important moments of Christian life: 1 they give birth and increase, healing and mission to the Christian's life of faith. There is thus a certain resemblance between the stages of natural life and the stages of the spiritual life.

 In today's first reading, the Prophet Micah begs God to "Shepherd your people with your staff..." The staff is faith, and the willingness to see the signs. The alert see them especially in our religious symbols. As we pay close attention to them, they clear our eyes and open our minds to see God's presence everywhere.
As the Irish poet Joseph Mary Plunkett wrote:

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes, His body gleams amid eternal snows, His tears fall from the skies.
I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds Are but his voice—and carven by his power Rocks are his written words.
All pathways by his feet are worn, His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn, His cross is every tree.