A Good Measure

A Good Measure

Monday of the Second Week in Lent

“Lord, great and awesome God, you who keep your merciful covenant toward those who love you and observe your commandments! We have sinned, been wicked and done evil; we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws.”  Daniel 9:4B-5

Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins. Psalm 79:8

“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”  Luke 6:37-38

Piety

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something

unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability—

and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances

acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

excerpted from Hearts on Fire

Study

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest. His poem quoted above speaks to the sometimes-excruciating experience of waiting on God.  Teilhard de Chardin notes that we should put redemption into the hands of God.  I love his phrase: “Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you…”

However, if we have to wait on God, imagine God having to wait on us to come around to our side of the covenant.  Luke and Daniel and even the Psalm-master basically try to get across the point that redemption is not in our hands.  If we stop judging and condemning on our terms, God will keep the perfect merciful covenant.  If we give, then we approach perfection.  What is in our hands is the turning over of everything to God.

Our behavior is on an evolutionary path from Adam to the prophets to the Christ child to the Risen Jesus to us.  God awaits.  

Action

Do you find yourself often impatient, struggling to trust that God's ways are higher than your wishes? Take a few minutes to reflect upon the wisdom Chardin shares in this poem.

If we are on the way to something unknown and something new, what stage are we passing through now? Are we done judging our neighbors, our competitors, our managers, our families?  Are we done condemning the crimes and sins of others and not turning our back on our own sins?

As our ideas and attitude mature in the direction of the Resurrected Jesus, what will we make of today?  Of tomorrow?