Morning Devotion for Lent
Monday, March 28, 2022
The Invitatory
Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end.
Amen.
The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him.
Reading: Mark 7:24-37
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
Meditation – Michael Palmisano
What are we meant to learn from this story? We certainly should not start from the line of thought which asks: “What Would Jesus Do?” Based on today’s gospel text, if we did as Jesus did, then we ought to be more abrasive towards women, put our fingers in each other’s ears, and spit in one another’s mouths. And if we pressed further and read the Gospel to its climax, we would be led to believe that our own crucifixion might somehow save the world. The Church was never meant to do as Christ did – it never could. As evidenced by this text, what sense do we Christians – people of Christ – make of Christ’s outspoken compassion for his people? His unobstructed sight for the poor and neglected? His proximity to the outcast? What are we to glean from his seemingly irreplicable actions?
Perhaps we aren’t meant so much to emulate Christ’s actions as to participate in his unique way of being in the world. The effect of God in Christ is the gathering of all people into God’s saving embrace – the bridging of the gap between God and human beings. For God in Christ there is no created thing that can escape his proximity. The Incarnation of God signifies a fundamental shift in the way that God relates to human beings and vice versa. The Incarnation is all about relationship and it is precisely from the context of this relationship of God with man that all sorts of graces emerge from nothingness: the deaf hear, the mute speak, the sick are healed, and the “other” is no longer foreign.
If this text is meant to “teach” us anything, perhaps it is this: we are not meant to emulate Christ, but we are invited to stand where he has stood – in proximate relationship to our fellow man. We were never meant to be saviors as Christ was for all creation. We were never meant to perform signs and wonders as he did. But we are indeed meant to enter direct relationship with our fellow man. It is from this position that the grace of God can emerge, surprise us, and show us a way where there was once “no way.” It is in the context of face-to-face relationship that we might be transformed, and the world with us.
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.
