Fourth Lent Reflection for 2017

Second Sunday of Lent, March 12, to Tuesday, March 14

Reflection

In seeking “the way” it is sometimes necessary to look backwards before we understand what we see ahead of us. And sometimes we simply cannot understand what is ahead of us. Poet Wendell Berry, who along with being a prize-winning poet is a farmer in Kentucky, describes it this way:

We travelers, walking to the sun, can’t see
Ahead, but looking back the very light
That blinded us shows us the way we came,
Along which blessings now appear, risen
As if from sightlessness to sight, and we,
By blessing brightly lit, keep going toward
That blessed light that yet to us is dark.

Lent gives us a chance to look back, and forward, and around. In the words of the wonderful hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” we sing

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided,
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.

The phrase, “Great is Thy faithfulness,” comes from the Book of Lamentations 3:23—but how full of joy these words are! “Morning by morning new mercies I see!” Are we seeing what God has provided today?

Readings

Readings for Second Sunday in Lent, March 12

  • Reading 1, Genesis 12:1-4A
  • Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22
  • Reading 2, 2 Timothy 1:8B-10
  • Verse Before Gospel, Matthew 17:5
  • Gospel, Matthew 17:1-9
  • Click here to go to USCCB Readings for March 12.

Readings of Monday, March 13

  • Reading 1, Daniel 9:4B-10
  • Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 79:8, 9 11 &13
  • Verse Before Gospel, John 6:63C, 68C
  • Gospel, Luke 6:36-38
  • Click here to go to USCCB Readings for March 13

Readings for Tuesday, March 14

  • Reading 1, Isaiah 1:10, 16-20
  • Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 50:8-9, 16BC-17, 21 & 23
  • Verse Before Gospel, Ezekiel 18:31
  • Gospel, Matthew 23:1-12
  • Click here to go to USCCB Readings for March 13

Click here to go to March 8 – March 11 …

Click here to go to March 15 – March 18 …