Friday of the 1st
Week of Lent
March 14, 2014 8:30am
Today’s readings assume that we
have some freedom to change.
They assume freewill.
Ezekiel in the first reading
calls those who are doing wrong to turn away from what they are doing, and those
who are doing good not to turn away from what they are doing.
Jesus in the gospel calls us to
use our freewill to go beyond the letter of the law.
Instead of just not killing
someone, we are not even to act out of anger or use abusive language.
These are challenging passages –
challenging because they set lofty ideals for us – good goals for our behavior,
but still lofty.
They are also challenging because
sometimes things affect our freedom.
Maybe we were verbally put down
and abused in our young, formative years.
Maybe that lies at the root of frequent
anger or hostility toward others.
That early life experience can
impinge on or limit our freedom.
We can also develop habits that
are bad.
Like a habit of using profanity
when we are frustrated – things like that.
After a while, habits like this can
also impinge on or limit our freedom.
In these situations, the freewill
or freedom that the Scripture assumes we have can still emerge.
But it emerges in this way: that
when we are aware of a past hurt or a habit that negatively affects us, we then
have the freedom to start to address this.
We then have the freewill to
choose to explore and work at managing the past hurt, or of getting hold of the
habit by replacing it with another habit that is good.
Then it is in using our freedom
to try to deal with these hurts and habits that we are indeed choosing God and
responding positively to God’s Word.
They are my reflections on these
Lenten Scripture passages this morning.
