Sometimes the world seems to be a bleak place. Yet the Gospel, and God’s promise of forgiveness, offers the hope of renewal. Fr Richard reflects on today’s readings from Mass.
Readings for Tuesday of the third week of Lent can be found here.
Recently I was talking to a friend who is the same age as me. We were reflecting on how good it was to have come of age in the 1990s. It seemed like a time full of optimism and hope. The Cold War had ended, the Berlin Wall had come down, the Soviet Union had collapsed and it appeared that Russia was heading towards democracy. Apartheid had ended in South Africa without any bloodshed, peace looked to have come to Northern Ireland, and the economy was booming after years of recession. Since then, however, it feels like things have been falling apart. We’ve had 9/11, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Gaza and now Iran; the financial crash, Brexit, Trump, Covid …. Sometimes the world appears to be a bleak place.
Azariah in our first reading is also in a bleak place. For a start he has just been thrown into the fiery furnace, and then describes what has happened to the nation of Israel: “… there is no prince or prophet or leader, no whole burnt offering or sacrifice or oblation or incense, no place to make an offering before you…” The servant in the parable that Jesus tells is also facing a bleak future. Owing 10,000 talents – equivalent to 150,000 years of wages – he and his family are about to be sold as slaves. Yet the servant and his loved ones are saved because of the mercy and compassion of the king, who in this parable of course represents God. It is the boundless love of God, expressed in the Gospel through forgiveness, and in the book of Daniel through God’s mighty power, which brings renewal when all seems lost.
Jesus is clear that we are called to be agents of God’s renewal and hope in what might seem like a bleak world by passing on the forgiveness we ourselves have received. Unlike the servant in the parable, who later refuses to forgive a paltry debt – only 100 days’ wages – we are to forgive like God, without limit. Ultimately, this is the only way in which our world can be lifted from the sorry state it’s in, so that God’s renewal and hope may truly begin to flourish.
Mass tonight is in St Mary’s at 6.30pm, followed by our Lent course at 7pm.
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