Monday of the First Week of Lent
February 19, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021924.cfm
The LORD said to Moses,
Leviticus 19:1
“Speak to the whole assembly of the children of Israel and tell them:
Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.
How do we become more like our loving, merciful God? How do we become holy? Today’s reading offers us a series of “shall nots” and “shalls” to guide us: (Click on the picture if you want to see it bigger.)
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy
Let’s hold our lives in prayer beside these images.
- Are there “nots” we wish to eradicate?
- Are there imperatives we wish to live by?
Poetry: I Too Am Alone in the World – from “The Book of Hours” by Rainer Maria Rilkē
I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.
Music: Holy God, We Praise Thy Name – Ignaz Franz
Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” (original German: “Großer Gott, wir loben dich”) is a Christian hymn, a paraphrase of the Te Deum. The German Catholic priest Ignaz Franz wrote the original German lyrics in 1771 as a paraphrase of the Te Deum, a Christian hymn in Latin from the 4th century.
Lavish Mercy 