Do Not Be Amazed at This March 21

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
March 21, 2007

By Diane Bayne

Can a mother be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget, I will never forget you." Isaiah 49:15

Jesus answered and said to them,
"Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own,
but only what he sees the Father doing;
for what he does, the Son will do also." John 5:19

Piety

In the face of so many scriptures like the one above from Isaiah 49, why is it so hard for many of us to believe in God's extravagant love for us? Meditating on the following piece from John Kirvan's God Hunger: Discovering the Mystic in All of Us might shed some light on this matter:

"I have been taught to prove my worthiness,
so it is not easy to come before you
with empty hands.
But your love is not earned.
Help me then
to empty my cluttered heart,
and out of its newfound emptiness
Let me reach out
to where your generosity awaits."


Study

http://www.usccb.org/nab/032107.shtml

Our difficulty in believing totally in God's love can spring from many sources. Henri Nouwen asserts that "The world is filled with voices that shout 'You are no good, you are ugly; you are worthless, you are despicable, you are nobody--unless and until you demonstrate the opposite" (Life of the Beloved). Or does our reluctance to believe in God's love and our hesitancy to approach Him spring from a need for control--a need to call all the shots ourselves? Such a stance is the complete opposite of Jesus' position of complete and total submission to the Father as expressed in John 5: 19, above. The Son cannot and will not do anything in opposition to the will of the Father. His focus on the Father-- and His surrender of His own will--is complete. Such is not always true for us. It seems that for most of us a lengthy process of trial and error is necessary before we learn the folly of trying to "go it alone."

Consider your own life experience and ask yourself: what attitudes may have played a part in blocking my growth in a love relationship with God?

Action

Kirvan's prayer, above, asks for help in emptying a "cluttered heart" so that "out of its newfound emptiness" a person can reach out to where God's generosity awaits.

What interior clutter do I still need to remove from my heart so nothing stands between me and God's generosity? What concrete action can I take today to begin to remove this clutter?