A loved one who dies without any warning, a child is afflicted with a severe illness, the loss of a job, a severe natural disaster or national tragedy. Good Christians continue to be persecuted and slaughtered in this supposedly civilized age. Such events can cause us to wonder if we’ve been forsaken or forgotten.
Isaiah wrote at a time when the entire nation of Israel was crying out to God in near despair. Israel had been conquered, captured, and forced into exile by Babylon, the world superpower six centuries before Christ. The exiled Israelites were little better than slaves. They were a nation on the verge of annihilation. They had no king, no leader, no army—from a natural, human point of view, there was no hope of deliverance or redemption.
And in their hopelessness they cried out, “the Lord has forsaken us, the Lord has forgotten us.” But God sent his prophet Isaiah to remind the exiles to look at their plight from a supernatural point of view. God says to them through, Isaiah: “Can a mother forget her infant, can she be without tenderness for the child of her womb?” He uses this image of the most powerful natural bond in human experience, a mother’s love for her child, and says, “my love and care for you is greater.”
This is an image that demands some reflection! Every one of us spent our first years of life defenseless and completely dependent on our mother. A child’s later development depends on the physical contact with his mother. And Isaiah is saying that God’s love goes beyond the physical, beyond the natural, God’s care for us is supernatural and abundant.
Think of the many ways a mother cares for her infant child. We have all witnessed a loving mother trying to comfort a crying baby. A mother comforts her child who is hungry, by feeding Him.
Well, we children of God hunger and long for Him, to know his closeness, to know that there is more to life than tragedy and sadness and loss. So God feeds us with his own body and blood. No matter the trial or the sadness or suffering in our life, we are able to come to the altar to be fed by God with “the true food” of heaven. We beings, who are both physical body and eternal soul, receive the life of God under the appearance of bread and wine. God satisfies the thirsty soul, and the hungry soul he fills with what is good, namely, Himself.
A mother comforts a child who is afraid by assuring the child of her presence. A mother’s presence is limited by physical distance, while God is “unseen yet ever near”. Through Baptism the Holy Trinity comes to dwell within the Christian soul. So the Christian is never alone. Fear so often overcomes us, not because God has forgotten us, but so often because we forget God is so close—not because God has gone silent, but because we often fail to incline our ear to His voice. We go through our daily activities never really being attentive to how close God actually is. You want to be free from fear? Often throughout the day, meditate on God’s closeness. Incline your ear to His voice in the Holy Scriptures.
A mother comforts a child who is physically sick by nursing the child to health. Our God brings us to health when we are spiritually sick, when our souls grow sick and are poisoned through sin, God, the Father of mercy, in the sacrament of confession, restores our sick souls to health. And in our severe physical illnesses, Jesus brings the light of grace through the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.
God calls us to look beyond the material, to the more important spiritual realities. In the Gospel, Jesus teaches us to stop worrying about worldly things, what he calls "mammon." "Mammon" comes from a Greek word meaning material goods and possessions - things that money can buy. He tells us not to be overly anxious about bank accounts, mortgages, work, career, reputation, achievements, worldly successes because these things cannot satisfy our hearts, and that if we care too much about them, they will separate us from God and from the peace of mind that comes only from a strong friendship with Christ.
Rather, he says "Seek first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well." The Greek word translated "seek" (zeteo) is a rich verb. It means to want eagerly, to look for actively, to strive for, to set one's heart on.All of us here already believe in Jesus Christ. But today Jesus is asking us how deeply do we seek Him. How actively are we seeking to know, love and follow Jesus Christ? How firmly is our heart set on his Kingdom? How eagerly and energetically are we striving to achieve righteousness, which is success in God's eyes, as opposed to success in the world's eyes?
Wednesday, begins the great season of Lent. Through our Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we get back to basics, we return to those practices which help us to focus on Christ, to seek first God’s kingdom.
In the next few days, it is important for each of us to come up with a Lenten plan. What will your Lenten prayer consist of? Will you add an extra rosary to your daily routine? Will you attend Stations of the Cross on Friday nights? Will you come to Mass a few times during the week? You might sign up to have the daily scripture readings emailed to you, so you can begin your day inclining your ear to God’s voice.
What will your Lenten fasting consist of? Of course, we are obligated to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and to abstain from eating meat on the Fridays of Lent. But that’s just the bare minimum. We do well to fast from desserts, sweets, snacks, and junk food. If you play a lot of video games or watch a lot of Netflix, perhaps give these things up for Lent, in order to focus on what really matters. Perhaps you have an unhealthy habit or addiction that you’ve been delaying giving up, Lent is the time to finally let go and let God.
And what will your Lenten almsgiving look like? A little extra in the offertory? Maybe instead of spending money on a five dollar coffee at starbucks, you forgo the luxury, and set aside the money for the homeless. Or…get to know your neighbors. Introduce yourself, invite them to the fish fry or stations of the cross, even if they aren’t Catholic. Or offer to bring back some delicious fried fish or pierogi for an elderly neighbor.
I guarantee that if you pour yourselves into the Lenten practices, the worldly anxiety will dissipate, trust in God and your experience of God’s presence will flourish.
Jesus’ teaching today is pretty clear: put God unambiguously first in your life. That doesn’t mean that you’ll never experience feelings of anxiety, or even great suffering. But it does mean that you’ll know what to do with them. You’ll know how to deal with them, and you’ll see them with the divine perspective. When we seek God first, then we will be filled with the inner peace of knowing life’s true purpose.
Seek first the kingdom of God, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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