March 16, 2010
Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
By Beth DeCristofaro
The angel brought me, Ezekiel, back to the entrance of the temple of the LORD, and I saw water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple to the East … He said to me, “This water flows into the eastern district down upon the Arabah, and empties into the sea, the salt waters, which it makes fresh. Wherever the river flows, every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live, and there shall be abundant fish, for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh. Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. (Ezekiel 47:1, 8-9, 12)
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked. (John 5:5-8)
Piety
Joyful praise in Lent? I'm not sure I always feel that. I ask you to help me prepare to understand and embrace the paschal mystery in my life. I don't always see the beauty and mystery of this season and often I run from the pain. Help me to see how your saving grace and your loving touch in my life can fill me with joyful praise of the salvation you have sent to me. (From Creighton U Ministries “1 Prayer a Day for Lent” http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Lent/Daily-prayers-04.html)
Study
Ezekiel is witness to the incredible generous, creative life force of God as he watches the living waters, God’s grace bubbling over wasteland brings fecundity and existence to what was desert. And the man at the well cannot be healed by the his efforts and the so-called power of the pool. It is Jesus’ living word which heals him.
There have been months of desert in my own life. As a student studying abroad I was very lonely away from home and isolated by an imperfect command of the French language. Attending Mass was comforting in the rhythms of the ritual but the words did not reach me. Then I met a family (truth be told I played peek-a-boo with their toddler during the sermon). They invited me to lunch and we struck up a friendship during which I began to feel the cool wash of refreshment on my parched soul. God’s presence in the form of a giving, welcoming family gave me a new beginning. Later in life I felt paralyzed under my own sadness and anger when my brother died. It was as if the bubbling pool was too far from me. I kept looking for a reason and the biological reality of an unlooked for heart attack was not an answer that comforted. I’ve prayed often about and for Mike and myself. Healing myself didn’t work. Leaving it in Jesus’ hands and, in essence, accepting Jesus words to get up and walk despite the paralysis has helped me heal. And often, the living waters of God’s community – my family, dear friends, Cursillo – have swept me along to renewal and regeneration.
God had my back in France and he had my back when Mike died. God has the infinite capacity and desire to re-green the desert of the East and of my soul.
Action
Lent can be a season of paradox if we truly allow ourselves to immerse in the vibrant, disturbing, challenging, hopeful and refreshing words of God. I feel that this Lent has pulled me along in its flow from the promises made by God to his Chosen People in history to the promises of Jesus now in my life. The images today of the living waters of God gives me a renewed hope that God has the world safely in hand despite vast arid spaces of desert, hurt, suffering and pain. God is there within those scorched areas too. What are we doing to renew God’s freshness within us and in the world around us?
