Thursday of the Second Week of Lent
February 29, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022924.cfm
Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,
Jeremiah 17: 5-6
who seeks strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
Such a person is like a barren bush in the desert
that enjoys no change of season,
But stands in a lava waste,
a salt and empty earth.
Have you encountered a person who is spiritually languishing, or even dead? The light of their spirit has gone out. There is no joy, hope, delight, or generosity in them. Sometimes their barrenness is buried under false hilarity or bravado, but after leaving them we find ourselves confused, saddened, empty, tired, or even a little angry.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s pray for any barren spirit we have encountered. They badly need our prayers.
And let’s ask God for the merciful freshening of our own spirit, seeking it by prayer, loving silence, and honest reflection on our choices and actions.
Poetry: What the Fig Tree Said – Denise Levertov
Literal minds! Embarrassed humans! His friends
were blurting for Him
in secret: wouldn’t admit they were shocked.
They thought Him
petulant to curse me!—yet how could the Lord
be unfair?—so they looked away,
then and now.
But I, I knew that
helplessly barren though I was,
my day had come. I served
Christ the Poet,
who spoke in images: I was at hand,
a metaphor for their failure to bring forth
what is within them (as figs
were not within me). They who had walked
in His sunlight presence,
they could have ripened,
could have perceived His thirst and hunger,
His innocent appetite;
they could have offered
human fruits—compassion, comprehension—
without being asked,
without being told of need.
My absent fruit
stood for their barren hearts. He cursed
not me, not them, but
(ears that hear not, eyes that see not)
their dullness, that withholds
gifts unimagined.
Music: Happy Sad Empty Full – The Gothard Sisters
Lavish Mercy 