23 Feb 2023 – Thurs after Ash Wednesday

23 Feb 2023 – Thurs after Ash Wednesday

Optional Memorial: St Polycarp, Bishop fo Smyrna, disciple of St John. Martyred in 155.

(1) Deuteronomy 30:15-20

A warm call to fidelity. Choose life, that you and your offspring may live!

Keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Responsorial: Psalm 1

R./: Happy are they who hope in the Lord

Blessed are they who who follow not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walk in the way of sinners,
nor sit in the company of the insolent,
But delight in the law of the Lord
and meditate on his law day and night. (R./)

They are is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever they do will prosper. (R./)

Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the Lord watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
Blessed are they who hope in the Lord. (R./)

Gospel: Luke 9:22-25

Jesus predicts his passion. Disciples must carry their daily cross after him.

Jesus said to his disciples, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?”

Choose Life

The Jesus whose life purpose was “that they may have life, and have it to the full” (Jn 10:10) also said that his friends must share in his death and carry the cross with him. The two statements stand in paradoxical tension, but not in contradiction.
From the very beginning it has been a fixed principle of Christianity that only through dying with him can we enter the fullness of life.

Deuteronomy, a book much loved and used by Jesus, presents fidelity, loyalty, as the key to the future of God’s people. “By walking in his ways, you shall live” it says, but if your heart turns away and you do not hear, I declare to you today that you shall perish!” In this, his final address to the people he has led out of slavery and into the Promised Land, Moses ends with the heartfelt appeal: “Choose life!”

Is self-denial worthwhile?

Jesus says that if we want to be his followers we have to be ready to renounce ourselves. Lent is traditionally a time for self-denial. We ask ourselves what it is we need to let go, to give up, in order to follow the Lord more closely. We probably could benefit from cutting down on something; it might be an excessive attachment that is derailing us, or some habit that is not serving us well.

Self denial is harder now than in the past because our marketing culture urges us to indulge ourselves. We can easily think of self-restraint as negative. Yet, any giving up of self indulgence, any letting go of trivia, is done to enhance our life, to live it to the full. The 1st Reading puts it very positively, “Choose life,” and Jesus says in the gospel that whoever loses his life for his sake will save it. We pray this Lent that the Lord would give us the grace to keep on choosing life.