The Word, the words and our ways

THE WORD IN LENT

Tuesday, First week in Lent - March 8, 2022

Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 6:7-15

We reflected just yesterday that we are called to realise the Image that resides within us - the Image of God. The Word became flesh and lived amidst us as the visible presence of the invisible God. The Word of God becomes flesh even today, the Word of God becomes life, and that is the model given to us, the lesson given today. 

The words of God are life, they are Spirit, they give life, they create, they recreate, they renew the face of the earth. No word that God speaks go waste and the Word today places the same challenge to us - do not babble, admonishes Jesus. in the Gospel today. He says, just as every word from God has its life, so should every word of ours become life - the Word we listen to, and the words we express. 

The Word we listen to comes from God and we need to allow it to have its effect within us. Opening our hearts and our soul to the Word and allowing ourselves to be formed, revived and renewed by the Word is not just a task given to us, but a privillege. Not all have that grace, but the people of God. 

The words we use, need to have life, just as the Words of the Lord. Be it to our fellow brothers and sisters, or to the Lord in prayer, every word we use has to have its life. When Jesus teaches those words of prayer, he not only taught us a prayer, but taught us a lifestyle, a way of life. It contains the crux of Christian life - that we see ourselves as brothers and sisters from One Father in heaven, that we dedicate ourselves to the Will and the Reign of God, that we fend for each other, that we forgive each other and be a source of salvation to each other. What a beautiful prayer, with not just words but our very way of life.