February 26, 2010
Friday of the First Week of Lent
By
When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die. But if the wicked, turning from the wickedness he has committed, does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life; since he has turned away from all the sins that he committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. (Ezekiel 18:26-28)
Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD; LORD, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to my voice in supplication. If you, O LORD, mark iniquities, LORD, who can stand? But with you is forgiveness, that you may be revered. (Psalms 130:1-4)
“… (I)f you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)
Piety
Lord, help me to accept the depth and certainty of Your forgiveness … and to forgive others.
Study
We call Psalm 130 De Profundis, from the psalm’s opening words (“Out of the depths I cry to You”). Most likely, it was written during the Babylonian Exile. We find it at vespers, services for the dead, and sometimes as part of our preparation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It’s inspired musicians in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and poems by folks as diverse as C. S. Lewis and Dorothy Parker.
It’s also the title of a lengthy letter (http://www.upword.com/wilde/de_profundis.html) Oscar Wilde wrote near the end of his prison term. The tone is different from Wilde’s witty, arch writings, more thoughtful and vulnerable. In part, he writes of a friend’s simple action of waiting in a corridor as Wilde was taken into court.
That, before the whole crowd, whom an action so sweet and simple hushed into silence, he might gravely raise his hat to me, as, handcuffed and with bowed head, I passed him by. Men have gone to heaven for smaller things than that. It was in this spirit, and with this mode of love, that the saints knelt down to wash the feet of the poor, or stooped to kiss the leper on the cheek.
Later in the letter, Wilde says religion doesn’t work for him, that he has faith in things he can touch and see. And yet, as he cries out of the depths to describe the simple charitable action of his friend, he uses the words and imagery of religion.
The simple things are praised in today’s Gospel reading as well. Rather than focus on the trappings we might offer as outward signs of our faith, Jesus calls on us first to dig into the depths and make things right with others. And when we do that, we gift everyone—the Lord, our brothers or sisters, and ourselves.
Action
Do something simple and, to you, forgettable to help someone who is crying out of the depths.
