Wake Up!

The Third Sunday of Lent. Candidates for Baptism or Full Communion with the Roman Catholic Church receive their first Scrutiny, and we are reminded of God's loving kindness, and the need to wake up, recognize it, and be converted. This Lenten season of grace is slipping by fast, "March Madness" refers not only to the scramble for basketball championships, but to the incessant, helter-skelter scurried-ness of our lives. Today is a sabbath day, one that should allow us a break from this pattern so that we might devote more time to prayer from the heart, and the goals we have set for ourselves during Lent. We are in a purifying period, a cleansing, emptying mode in order that the fullness of grace, a deeper relationship with Christ might fill the chinks and crevices of our heart and become visible in our actions. A prayerful, slow, repetition of Psalm 103, with stops and ponderings over words or phrases that leap out to us and seem directed especially to us might provide the peace that we need to allow Lent to "do its thing" with us.

Bless the Lord O my soul;
and all my being bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.

He pardons all your iniquities,
heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
he crowns you with kindness and compassion.

The Lord secures justice
and the rights of all the oppressed.
He has made known his ways to Moses,
and his deeds to the children of Israel.

Merciful and gracious is the Lord,
slow to anger and abounding in kindness.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.
Bro. Rene