Choose to listen, forgive and live!

Listening to the right voice

THE WORD IN LENT 2026 - FIRST WEEK FRIDAY

February 27 - Ezekiel 18: 21-28; Matthew 5: 20-26

Listening to the right voice - that call deepens as we get nearer to the close of the week. We are called to listen because the Lord our God listens, the Word reminded us yesterday. How does the Lord listen? That would be the part of discussion today illumined by the Word. The Listening God - listens to our cry, our genuine groans and our sincere efforts, rising out of our limitedness but also our integrity. 

There are three layers to the message that the Word offers us today - the first is call to choose to listen. At times what we do and what we say become secondary to what we choose to do or choose to say. The intention is what really matters, in everything, be it in everyday experiences or in special life-time choices. Our God is a listening God, because God chooses to listen! It is not that God has to listen... God is almighty, but chooses to listen to us, understand us and accept us with all our idiosyncrasies, because God loves us, God has chosen to love  us. 

A second layer consists of the fact that the Lord has chosen to forgive - the first reading in its candid clarity presents to us the fact. We are forgiven, not for what we do or what we achieve, but for what we feel at heart, what we choose in our mind, what we identify ourselves with. If we identify ourselves as people and children of God, in spite of the weaknesses that we possess, we choose God! When we choose God, we do good to ourselves, because God has already chosen us, chosen to forgive us and chosen to accept us totally. A sign of God's choice to listen to us, is God's choice to forgive us - it is from there our new life is born. 

A third layer of this message, that Jesus underlines is - when we choose to listen, that is, when we choose to forgive, we choose to live. Choosing God, choosing to listen to God, choosing to remain in the forgiveness of God and choosing to forgive each other, we choose to live, to live to the full. Choosing your words, choosing your dispositions, choosing your brother and sister, choosing God above all - that is the choice for life. Virtue is integrity, it is an interior choice; duplicity is a vice, the worst of its kind which impedes life. 

Let us choose to listen; choose to forgive and choose to live!