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February 18, 2024Four borders frame this reflection:
On the left side is a statement from Boston Globe columnist Steve Annear, “We were all humans until race disconnected us, religion separated us, politics divided us, and wealth classified us.”
The right border was supplied by Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, from the February page of her calendar, “We discover in the silent arms of God that it is enough to be loved.”
At the top is Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s thesis, brilliantly articulated in her one-year-long best-sellers-listed, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. The recently released movie Origin dramatized her dawning awareness that humans dehumanize and subjugate others in order to maintain their assumed superiority.
The bottom of the frame holds Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of Mark. After being named by a heavenly voice as the Beloved Son, then immediately tempted by Satan in the desert, Jesus proclaimed in Galilee that the kingdom of God is at hand. “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”
We are the reflectors standing, not outside the frame as detached observers, but within it as members of Christ’s Body. We contemplate the borders. We recall St. Paul’s words about Christ Jesus, “Who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped. But he emptied himself . . . becoming as human beings are . . . .” (Phil 2:2-11). On this first Sunday of Lent, we ask Jesus, truly God and truly man, which of our beliefs and behaviors must change so that we can personally experience, and witness to others, today, the time of fulfillment he announced.
[click here for the readings of the day]
