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Scripture readings Daily Reflections

Reflection for the Vigil of the First Sunday of Lent 2009
28 February 2009

by Mary Teresa Morris, OSB

The gospel for the first Sunday of Lent is the temptation in the desert. The author of Mark does not go into great detail. Satan and the angels are in juxtaposition- - one is tempting, the others are ministering. At the end of the forty days, Jesus leaves the desert ready to proclaim the location of the kingdom, the arrival of the time of fulfillment, and that all that is needed to experience both: Repent and believe the Good News.

What message did the angels bear? They revealed the location of and the inhabitants of the Tragic Gap. The current issue of Weavings concerns ministering in the Tragic Gap: that place between what could be/should be and what we, in our brokenness, live instead. Parker Palmer in his article, "The Broken-Open Heart: Living with Faith and Hope in the Tragic Gap," quotes two stories. One is a rabbi, the other is a Sufi master.

The rabbi states that the Torah speaks of having the word on our hearts rather than in our hearts because our hearts are not broken open to receive the word inside. The Sufi master teaches that God breaks our heart—and keeps breaking it until it stays open to receive him.

Satan and his temptations are in this gap of the human condition as well. His answer to life in the gap breaks hearts. However, this brokenness results in shards that either results in continuous injury to us or to inflict pain on those around us.

What message did the angels bear? The kingdom of God is not up there, down there, in Galilee or in Jerusalem. Rather, it is in the Tragic Gap. It was time to proclaim God’s existence in the gap and transform it from a place of heartbreak to a place of heart openness. The time had come for the Word to reside, not on our hearts, but in our hearts. The message is simple. Turn from self-inflicted pain and from inflicting pain. Turn from hardened hearts and allow Jesus and the Word inside our hearts.

And Jesus left the desert and entered into the gap of the human condition. That Jesus: a real heartbreaker.


© 2009 Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica
Atchison, Kansas
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