Thursday of the First Week of Lent

"From Ink to Blood"

As part of my co-chair responsibilities for the lector ministry in my parish, I work with new lectors in their formation in the craft of proclaiming the Word -- how to surrender their voices, bodies, facial expressions, and posture as people of faith in sending out the Living Word of Good News, alive in this time and this place. Their role: to become hollow reeds with texture (!), turning the 'ink' on the paper into the 'blood' of new life and witness.
 
Pope Francis used blood in a very different context this week. In St. Peter's Square on Sunday, after reciting the Angelus, he prayed for peace and lamented the 'rivers of blood and tears flowing in the Ukraine.' The readings for today seem tailor-selected to make present this 'ink on the paper' paired now with the blood of violence -- an interpretation forged by the sin of our age, a breathtaking awareness that human beings can still cause this much anguish and destruction in our modern day. In Esther we hear "Help me, who am alone and have no help but you, for I am taking my life in my hand. Come to help me, an orphan," and we see the one million children, now refugees, dressed in winter snowsuits and hats that look just like my granddaughter's, fleeing the only home they have known with their traumatized mothers. In the Psalm response we hear "On the day I called for help, you answered me. Forsake not the work of your hand," and we see fathers at train stations, returning to the front after wrenching goodbyes to their families. In the Gospel, Jesus calls us to knock at the door, waiting for the opening in answered prayer from the God who knows us, loves us, wants only good for us. Our prayers for peace now storming the gates of heaven suddenly seem like a prayer for a miracle almost beyond our power to imagine.
 
But our Gospel passage does not leave us an orphan. "Do unto others whatever you would want to have done to you" is the final charge Jesus gives us. "Do" -- an action word. This coming Saturday March 12th will mark the 400th anniversary of the canonization of Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, and Francis Xavier as saints in our Catholic tradition. St. Teresa's famous prayer may help us now from lapsing into despair and hopelessness. "Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which He looks compassion on this world." 
 
Pray and do. We know what to pray for. What can we do? What will we do? How will we use our 'blood' today? Pray for the sick; make a banana bread for a homebound neighbor. Pray for Ukraine; write a check to support refugee relief. Examine our Lenten homework to pray, fast, and give alms, then write a letter to a friend.
 
Love is always knocking at our door. Let our prayers keep us alert to that sound. May we then find strength to do the work of healing and reconciliation that that Voice is calling us to. Make us a hollow reed of prayer and action.