Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent

April 5, 2003

“0 searcher of heart and soul; 0 just God.” Certainly Jeremiah seems to recognize this relationship of trust in today's first readings. He has come a long way from God's first call when he protested saying: “I am too young, find someone else.” God replied: “Do not say to me: ‘I am too young; for I have known you since I knit you in your mother's womb.’”

I don't know who would want to argue with God about that; but I can admit there was a time when I was not comfortable with the words of today's psalm. I didn't want God digging around in my life looking for things that were wrong with me or for things He could find for me to do that I didn't particularly care to.

Who among us doesn't get a little queasy when we think about God checking out the darkest corners of our heart or even helping us make an examination of conscience before confession?

But I have grown to feel very different now. For me the sacrament of reconciliation is the spiritual equivalent of my workout at the gym each Saturday morning. When I'm finished and I come home, I feel like a new person. It is not that I have gotten rid of all the things that prevent me from being a loving person; and I haven't gotten rid of all the fat off my abs either, but what is changed is the comfortable relationship I can now share with this One who knows my heart and soul.

He believes in me and in my goodness and my desire to want to change the things I can and to accept the things I cannot change, at least for the time being. This verse gives comfort because it reminds me how intimately close God is to me at every moment, whether I am aware of it or not.

You may well know a good deal about Jesus, especially if you grew up in a Christian home and learned your catechism; but that is not the same and cannot replace a relationship of knowing Jesus. When you know a person well and have a close relationship, you know how that person thinks' and what moves their heart to joy, or sadness or anger.

Those who know Jesus find his words mysterious and challenging. The way of discipleship is not one of absoluter certitude but rather one of absolute confidence and trust, even when in the course of our lifetime we might find our hearts divided.

Sometimes we find ourselves challenged to stand confidently with him and not be led astray by scandal that swirls around us like a tornado. Sometimes we are ashamed when we find how far in fact we have strayed. The division, of which Jesus speaks in the gospel, is not merely one between believers and unbelievers, but also the divided and anguished hearts of those called to make some painful decisions.

Let us not become like those who want to arrest Him, to silence Him once and for all, but rather, let us recognize and live with the division in our heart, like St. Joseph who simply "wanted to put Mary away quietly, and spare her from shame," until He knew the whole story.

Let us look to the example of Mary, herself, not seeking to silence or shut out what she could not understand, but rather, asked: “How can this be?” Pause and reflect upon the pains that divide your heart. Pains which would seek to pull you away from God, to silence Him, to end the relationship.