Lenten Meditations 2017

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
Reading 1 Is 55:10-11

Thus says the LORD:
Just as from the heavens
the rain and snow come down
And do not return there
till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful,
Giving seed to the one who sows
and bread to the one who eats,
So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
It shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.

​Meditation:
What is God's word for us? What is its purpose so that it does not return void to Him?

Indeed in today's Gospel, Jesus teaches us to pray by giving the Lord's Prayer. It begins with, as we should all know..."Our Father".

Immediately we should see or sense it is a setting of intimacy, comfort, protection or at least it should be. Sadly many of us don't have warm fuzzy relationships with our fathers and so our vision is obscured but nevertheless the addressee of the prayer, God the Father does indeed love us with the deepest love that can ever be known. So in order to discern what is God's word for us and its purpose we have to know who God is. And that brothers and sisters is revealed in the Son, Jesus, the eternal word of God who says:
Jn 6:38-44 "because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. 39 And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it [on] the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him [on] the last day.”

Eternal life that comes through faith; this is God's word and purpose for us that "shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it."
​
Lent calls us to ponder the word that will not return to heaven void, to an intimate relationship with Abba. Peace.