7 March 2022
Monday of the First Week of Lent
Both Leviticus and Matthew tell us the same thing today. In the context of Lent, we can say that, while prayer connects us with God and fasting connects us with our self, almsgiving tethers us to our neighbor. The Church places our relationship with others in the foreground today.
Jesus gives us the esschatological significance of every encounter we’ve ever had with someone in need. In some mysterious, metaphysical way, Jesus is the one who begs for help by the traffic light or under the highway sidewalk. Anyone who has ever extended a needy, open hand is, the Gospel tells us, Christ. Sometimes we need to allegorize biblical passages in order to make them about the life to come. Matthew 25’s literal meaning is its eschatological meaning.
Those who truly see Jesus in the needy, those who give alms, are the ones to whom Jesus addresses as “you who are blessed by my Father.” Of course, we naturally find the word “blessing” in our mouth when some good thing comes into our grasp. For Jesus, the blessing is finding Him in those who look to you for help.
For its part, Leviticus offers us precepts to keep our hearts free from stopping us from heeding Jesus’s words. There are many: be sure to pay laborers fairly; do not gossip; do not “swear to God” and thus profane His name. The last few precepts might rank among the most difficult: “take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow men.” It’s the hardest because the precept only makes sense in regard to the most difficult people in our lives. Everyone has someone difficult in their life, people who, in some way, however small or large, do us harm. Solemnly, God demands we never retaliate.
Even further, He asks us not to cherish a grudge. Even in the midst of all the challenges we heard today– whether it be feeding the hungry or visiting the imprisoned because you see Christ in them — the hardest one for me is not cherishing a grudge. It’s the wrongful humiliations we bear that we struggle to let go.
When we finally do let go and feel that spiritual freedom, we’ll powerfully know God is laboring in our life.