Monthly Archives: March 2021

Reflecting on Mark 14: 1-15:47

Suffering. The experience of it often supersedes the relief we feel when it is over. Somehow we participate in the stern forty days of Lent, with its ashes and palms, with more fervor than in the glorious fifty days of Easter, suffused as they are with baptismal gowns, First Communion clothes, and Confirmation robes.

We’re not alone. The Passion Narrative was, most probably, the earliest part of each of the four gospels to be written. Was it closer to the hearts of the evangelists than even the Resurrection Accounts? Tradition believes that St. Peter was the eyewitness behind Mark’s gospel (I Peter 5:13). It’s touching to think that Peter wanted to make sure Mark wrote down how Peter denied Jesus. He didn’t want later historians to give him a pass.

I do know this for sure: Mark the Evangelist knows how the story ends while he’s writing his Passion. You bet he does. Only Mark has a young man follow Jesus after the arrest, and when they seize his cloak, he runs away naked (14:51).

I loved it when early commentaries suggested that it was Mark, writing himself in as a terrified, hidden disciple. But I love this theory even more: we see that young man again, and this time he isn’t terrified at all. He’s powerful, and robed in white, and sitting on the rolled-away stone of the Empty Tomb. “Go tell Peter what you saw,” he says (Mk. 16:7).

That’s the Good News, shouted through the ages, and, in Mark, announced by one who was, just days ago, running for his life. He’s running in a different direction now, that angel. He’s running towards you, towards me.

Run, boy. Run.

Are you sure you know how the Story ends?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on Psalm 51

Create in me a clean heart, and renew Your Spirit within me. Imagine waking up on the Fifth Sunday of Lent with the open, wide-eyed wonder of your childhood self. With just a bit of guidance, you could see God’s work everywhere, and the rivers of joy coming from God’s Spirit would animate your life once again.

I think of young King David, shockingly breaking the ninth commandment by coveting the wife of poor Uriah the Hittite. He wanted the beautiful Bathsheba—whose father, grandfather and husband he knew—and what the King wants the King gets.

Just like some modern-day kings in the Middle East, he summoned her to his bed and she was obliged to go. She soon turned up pregnant, of course, and hence the bungled cover-up commenced. Nobody needs to know, thought David. He tried all kinds of ways to keep his sin undiscovered, but in the end the only thing that worked was an obvious ruse to get Uriah killed on the front lines.

Bathsheba was then free to marry King David, but, to their despair, their child did not live. And it’s smack in the middle of that despair—and the strong rebuke by his prophet Nathan— that, tradition says, King David composed Psalm 51, the Miserere,  that we sing today: Create in me a clean heart, oh God. Renew Your Spirit within me.

It’s the job description of sin to find endless ways to bring misery, and it did. The sword never left the House of David (2 Samuel 12:10) from that day until the day the Prince of Peace was born in the City of David.

That’s the backstory on today’s psalm.

How is God creating a clean heart in you this Lent?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on John 3:14-21

Do you remember the exhilaration of getting your first pair of Keds, say, when you were five? I could absolutely jump higher and run faster than ANYBODY, just watch me! watch me! watch me! My parents, ever indulgent, oohed and aahed at the ecstasies of all of their kids. And, in those early years, I thought their love and admiration for me was directly tied to how blindingly fast I was, and how shockingly high I could jump.

It wasn’t until my baby brother aged into the new Keds experience, and they clapped and praised his athletic genius too, that it hit me. Oh. Our parents don’t love us for what we accomplish. They egg us on into believing we are super-human in all our endeavors because they know that makes us happy. They love us because they love us, not because we are great at anything we do, because, well, we really aren’t.

What a grace it is to read John 3:17: For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that through Him the world might be saved. What a get-out-of-jail passage that is. God didn’t love us unto death because of anything, anything, that we did. The word “grace” means “undeserved kindness.” It’s like when the judge orders a stay of execution for the (guilty) guy on death row. We are saved because of the undeserved kindness of God.

Now we are free to run as fast as we can to the finish line, life on high in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14). And, in our joy, we jump as high as we can to feed, and clothe, and bring justice to God’s earth.

What good works that you perform make you the most conscious of the undeserved kindness of God?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on Exodus 20:1-17

I hope that you had the great grace of being made to memorize the Ten Commandments as a child. But in case your brain has had to delete them to make room for the thousands of other things you’ve needed to stuff in there through the years, take the list out of today’s first reading and see how long it takes to commit each one to memory again.

It was easier when we were kids. Our brains were more supple, of course, but, more than that, it was easy to confidently recite commandments we were certainly never going to break. I think of those commandments a lot these days, during tax time. It turns out that a lot of us are willing to break the seventh commandment because, well, we can.

Thou shalt not steal seems like such an obvious command. No society can prosper when there is no deterrence from stealing from each other. Certainly we can all point to government waste, and entitlements we deem immoral. Funding those in our taxes is a bitter pill. In other cases, though, hiding assets is meant to benefit the wealthier member of a divorcing couple, to the detriment of the children of that union.

These past two tax seasons have been particularly appalling as poor, single mothers realize that their “smart, savvy” ex has stolen their stimulus check from them. During the pandemic, the most obvious sin against the seventh commandment has been the number of fraudulent unemployment claims filed—sevenfold the number of authentic claims! Do we not realize that this is theft?

We need a “come to Jesus” moment. Thou shalt not steal is not a suggestion. It’s an honest-to-God commandment.

Which commandment am I struggling with this Lent?

Kathy McGovern ©2021