The Catholic Calendar for Tuesday, March 7, 2006
Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
Sts. Felicity and Perpetua, martyrs

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Isaiah 55:10-11
Psalm 34:4-7, 16-19
Matthew 6:7-15

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

Today's Responsorial Psalm says, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; and those who are crushed in spirit, He saves." Sometimes it is difficult to know that the Lord is close to us when we are brokenhearted, instead we often think that if He was really close He would have prevented the unhappiness form even occurring.

It is a function of faith to believe in a loving and caring God when the circumstances are overwhelmingly hard and yet that is what we are asked to do. How shall we accomplish such a difficult task? Perhaps the best advice is to look at the suffering Christ, who though God Himself, was not spared the pain of human suffering and continued throughout His many difficulties in His public ministry to persevere in prayer with His Father. It was in prayer that He was assured of the Father's solicitude, it will be the same way with us.

There is a lovely picture of Christ in the Garden; He is obviously sad and broken hearted, all His disciples have abandoned Him, He feels the imminent threat that is closing in on Him. Yet, in this poignant picture there is this figure of a beautiful Angel on whose chest Jesus lays His head. The angel appears to be supporting His weary body and and has a hand holding His arm and and gently cradling His head.

It is a picture of broken-heartedness and yet one where we see that God is present and caring in the image of the angel. Let us remember that. God is always present though sometimes hidden. Always caring, but often silent.

"I hope in the Lord, I trust in His word" (Psalm 130:5)

- Donna Nelson, OCDS
(drn3rd at hotmail dot com)

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