By Fr Joachim Robert
Isaiah 58:1-9
Psalm 50:3-6,18-19
Matthew 9:14-15
Dear friends,
On Wednesday, we have just begun this whole time of grace, this whole season of Lent where we are called to repentance. Repentance from our old ways of life, to see where we have drifted away, where we have lost and how we are called to return back to the Father’s embrace.
And as we look at the readings of today, especially the Responsorial Psalm, it highlights that this Psalm was prayed at the lowest pit of David’s life. At the lowest pit where he lost all sense of hopelessness, and he was helpless and it is in that situation that he listened to the voice of God and that he was present to God who was with him.
And as we begin this journey, dear friends, this journey of Lent, it is a reminder for you and I to take stock and see where are we because in every areas of our lives, sometimes we tend to be so busy with so many things that we lose sight of where we are in our relationship with God. And Lent becomes a time where we check our bearings, whether our will is aligned to the will and the plan of God.
And the response invites us:-
A humbled contrite heart, O God, you will not spurn.
It is an invitation, dear friends, to dig deeper into ourselves, deeper into our hearts to allow our hearts to listen to the promptings of God in us. Because when we listen, we can listen to many many things. That perhaps would drift us away from the will and the plan of God. But this time of Lent invites us to listen to that voice of God, stirring our hearts.
And I am not sure. Some of us speak and speak and speak but we want what that comes in our hearts to be just blurted out and we want to say whatever that is in our mind to be out there. But I am not sure whether you have really really experienced this aspect of being listened to. Because when we speak, we want perhaps to change the mind of the other.
But if we put ourselves in that situation, is there with any situations of life, any areas or time in your life that you have been truly truly listened to? Listened to your problems? When people listen to your problems, when people listen to the experiences of life that you are going through, when people listen to your own emotions, to your own joys, your sorrows, that makes a lot, a lot of difference because you feel heard.
And that is where, dear friends, we too need to allow this season of Lent to speak to us. The Lord reaches out to us during this season of Lent for us to listen to His voice. And are we willing to open our hearts and our minds to listen and to see where He is calling us?
And perhaps in that busyness of life, in those situations of struggles, loneliness, depression that we are in, we may be unable to see. But that invitation of being called, being heard, being listened to, comes stronger and stronger during this time of Lent.
Because when we listen, dear friends, you are indeed being present to the people before you. You are indeed being present to God who speaks to you in love, in compassion and in mercy.
And very often when someone goes through a difficult patch in their life, whatever words that you say does not matter. But one of the most powerful experiences that you can go through is that when you are going through that difficult patch in your life, someone sits beside you, someone accompanies you, someone journeys together with you towards those difficult moments. And that sense of being present to another, dear friends, brings us to a whole new relationship altogether.
And again, Lent invites you to be present together with God. Our sense of prayer, our sense of alms giving, all these, dear friends, stems from our relationship with God. Even our aspect of fasting also stems from our deep desire to be present and to listen to that voice of God in our lives.
So as we begin this journey of Lent, this 40 days of Lent inviting us to grow in our relationship with God, let us pray that we may listen with our hearts, to be present to God who wants to reveal His love for us, who heeds us to come back, to come back, to come back to Him with full of love.
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