Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent
March 14, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031424.cfm

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The LORD said to Moses,
“Go down at once to your people
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt,
for they have become depraved.
They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them,
making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it,
sacrificing to it and crying out,
‘This is your God, O Israel,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’

Exodus 32: 7-8

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Today’s readings give us Moses and John the Baptist, each serving as a bridge over the chasm between a faithful God and a faithless people. Both met blockades in their attempts to lead the people to their God, just as Jesus meets opposition in today’s Gospel.

For Moses, the blockade was the golden calf, symbol of all the fragile pretensions we substitute for a true and committed faith. Real faith is dangerous. It asks us to risk ourselves on realities we cannot see. Glittering gold, even in the form of a beast, feels so much more secure!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s have the courage to look for the golden calves in our lives

• a greed for control, power which limits others’ freedom
• any form of disrespect or indifference toward another’s dignity
• the lust for, or abuse of money or goods
• willfulness that limits my own spiritual growth, or the spiritual joy of others

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Poetry: The Golden Calf – John Newton (1725-1807), also author of “Amazing Grace”.

When Israel heard the fiery law,
From Sinai's top proclaimed;
Their hearts seemed full of holy awe,
Their stubborn spirits tamed.

Yet, as forgetting all they knew,
Ere forty days were past;
With blazing Sinai still in view,
A molten calf they cast.

Yea, Aaron, God's anointed priest,
Who on the mount had been
He durst prepare the idol-beast,
And lead them on to sin.

Lord, what is man! and what are we,
To recompense thee thus!
In their offence our own we see,
Their story points at us.

From Sinai we have heard thee speak,
And from mount Calv'ry too;
And yet to idols oft we seek,
While thou art in our view.

Some golden calf, or golden dream,
Some fancied creature-good,
Presumes to share the heart with him,
Who bought the whole with blood.

Lord, save us from our golden calves,
Our sin with grief we own;
We would no more be thine by halves,
But live to thee alone.

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Music: Song of the Golden Calf from the opera Faust by Charles Gounod