... In fasting, we learn to die, even if just a little bit, to our natural needs and desires, however proper they might be. In giving alms, we die to our material possessions. In confession, we die to sin and improper desires. And in prayer we die to our self-centered will, instead praying, “Thy will be done.”
Fasting, giving alms, confessing our sins and praying are rarely easy, and they are often demanding and painful. They involve suffering and they require obedience.
They are concrete ways in which we grow as sons and daughters of the new covenant. When the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed the future establishment of a new covenant, he addressed a people so stubborn and practicing such vile sins — including the sacrifice of “their sons and daughters to Molech” — they were soon handed over to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and taken into exile (see Jer 32:27-35). That punishment was indeed harsh, but it was a measure of how given over they were to a culture of death and corruption.
Yet God’s promise of a new covenant was made in love, evident even in the midst of condemnation: “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” God seeks to restore communion with man. His final goal is not damnation, condemnation, exile or the destruction of anything good and right. The opening paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church expresses the reality of the matter with succinct elegance: “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man” (No. 1).
Read the rest of my March 25, 2012, "Opening the Word" column at OSV.com, as this particular column is apparently available to both subscribers and non-subscribers alike. You can also read my 2009 column (same Cycle B readings, of course) here in Insight Scoop.
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