The winter Olympics highlight not only dreams for medals in 102 events. They also celebrate self-discipline, excellence, peace, understanding, values that people of goodwill everywhere strive for in relationship with our fellow human beings. The Olympics excite and inspire. We are touched by genuine camaraderie among teammates and between competing teams. Enjoy the stories & events, and also the Paralympic Games for athletes of different abilities.
Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day this year. I read about a couple ready to leave for a Valentine's Day candle-light dinner. On the way out, the husband looked into the mirror and observed, “Honey, I weigh too much, I have a double chin, a pot belly, a bald head, a wrinkled face and my clothes don’t fit. I don’t feel good. I need you to pay me a compliment.” The wife replied, “Your eyesight is perfect.” Now, that’s a backhanded compliment!
The word of God takes us back to one of the early books of the bible: Leviticus, named for the tribe of Levi. It’s a rule book that describes, among numerous things, sacrificial religious rituals and rubrics, festivals, public health protocols, and a holiness or how-to-behave code with regard to our covenantal relationships with God and our fellow human beings.
The author gives his fellow Hebrews a guideline about so-called leprosy which in those days referred, not to what we know as Hansen’s disease, but to skin diseases of one kind of another. These diseases were thought to be infectious or contagious and so a person, if declared “unclean”, was banished from the community. He or she had to live outside the community, alone and isolated.
The word invites us to reach out compassionately to the lonely, the sick, the needy and the forgotten.
St. Paul, in his letter to the Christian community at Corinth, is adjudicating a dispute about whether Christians can eat meat or other foods associated with the temple rituals of ancient Rome. Paul says: yes, you can eat these foods but don’t do it if it scandalizes your fellow Christians. Paul then urges us to do everything for the glory of God.
Paul challenges us to work for the good of others, to live out the virtues Jesus highlighted, for example, in the beatitudes and elsewhere in the Gospels, to let our fellow human beings see in our attitudes and behaviors the “glory or presence of God.”
In the Gospel according to Mark, a so-called leper begs Jesus to restore him to good health. This man was not supposed to be around people. He’s isolated … unable to live with his family, unable to hold a job, or attend services in the synagogue … rejected. And yet this man chooses to face yet another rejection by walking up to Jesus. And Jesus, “moved with pity,” heals him. And Jesus goes on to say: “Tell no one” -- the so-called Messianic secret.
The highlight for me is this: the leper’s prayer was answered. Yes, sometimes our own prayers are answered. But more often, they’re not. A Franciscan colleague wrote a book titled “When God Says No” that makes that point. Yes, we sometimes receive a no, and later realize that some good came out of that “no.”
We may pray to God for one thing or another, and we sense silence. We’re ill, or someone we love has cancer, we feel insecure about our job, we become anxious about our children, we ask God for peace and understanding in our families, we pray that a particular wrong will be righted, and so forth. And God seems so silent. We may even feel like giving up on God; or we may start thinking negatively about ourselves. What to do?
Let us pray not to succumb to negative feelings, but to rise above them by reflecting on certain faith themes:
- Let’s re-examine our image of God. Some people think of God only as a judge. However, the bible, which captures the religious experiences of so many men and women, offers a collage of God-images. God is a walking companion in Genesis, a passionate debater in the Book of Job, an anxious parent and a comfortingmother in the Book of Isaiah, a prodigal father in the Gospels. Yes, what is our image of God? God is our ever-faithful companion in life.
- Imagine if all our prayers were answered. The ancient Greek storyteller, Aesop, tells a story of a dog who found a bone and pranced happily homeward. Passing by a pond and looking into the pond, he saw a dog that looked like himself with a similar bone. And lurching forward to steal the bone, the dog’s own bone fell into the water, and he discovered the other dog had been only his own reflection. The point: unchecked greed can result in losing everything. Bernie Madoff was a case in point. My key point, though, is: sometimes in our prayers there’s too much of ourselves and not enough of God and our fellow humans.
- Remember God’s providence and care for us in the past. How often the ancient Hebrews forgot the wonders God worked for them in Egypt, in the wilderness, in the kingdom of Israel. Like a skilled pickpocket, God is present in many different ways and we don’t know except by the evidence afterward. He may seem absent, but our faith says he’s with us always.
- You can be angry but don’t stay angry. In his novel “The Town Beyond the Wall” holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel describes the anger of a concentration camp inmate who said: I shake my fist at God; it’s my way of saying God exists. That shout became a prayer. Prophets and saints often argued with God. Yes, to demand an answer is to take God seriously, to acknowledge God’s care. But we ultimately have to let go of our anger; otherwise that anger will become poison. Remember the prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
- Know that you are in good company. Many others have known the silence of God. Job in the bible. Jesus prayed for deliverance. The point I want to make is: keep praying. For God is God. God’s ultimate purpose is to satisfy our deepest longings with eternal life.
And so, as we think of the leper whose prayer was answered, and as we think about our own prayers, remember God’s care for us in the past and God’s continuing care for us.
The great 16th century saint Teresa of Avila, declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI, gives us this perspective:
“Let nothing disturb you;
Let nothing dismay you;
all things pass;
God never changes;
Patience gains everything;
they who have God
lack nothing:
God alone suffices.”
