Thursday of the Third Week of Lent 2023
Thus says the LORD:
This is what I commanded my people:
Listen to my voice;
then I will be your God and you shall be my people.
Walk in all the ways that I command you,
so that you may prosper…
When you speak all these words to them,
they will not listen to you either;
when you call to them, they will not answer you.
Say to them:
This is the nation that does not listen
to the voice of the LORD, its God,
or take correction.
Faithfulness has disappeared;
the word itself is banished from their speech.
-Jeremiah 7:23, 27-28
As I reflected on today’s Readings, I thought of an insight from the book Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion by Joseph Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict XVI). He wrote, “The devil is captivity, the bonds that fetter man, the exile, the way man is led away from himself.” Freedom, he concludes, “is indissolubly related to truth.”
The notion of evil—that demonic presence—as a binding or imprisoning force can help us to make sense of the Readings on this Thursday of the Third Week of Lent.
In the First Reading, the Prophet Jeremiah gives voice to God’s anger over the infidelity of the people who have begun to worship other gods. The verses proclaimed today are taken from a longer speech addressing abuses in worship. Rather than focusing on those ritual practices, however, God is most angered because the people had forgotten what had been revealed their ancestors by God’s prophets: “They have not obeyed me nor paid heed; they have stiffened their necks and done worse than their fathers” (7:26).
Living a distorted freedom in which they have chosen a path other than the one God willed for them, the people have lost sight of the truth of who God is and all that God does to bless and sustain them. In all of this, they are no longer truly free to live as God made them to be, but they have become captives of their own preferences and agendas.
This same theme is at work in the Gospel proclaimed today.
Jésus guérit un possédé muet by James Tissot (1886-1894)
While it might be tempting to focus our attention on the accusation made against Jesus (that “By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons”) and Jesus’ discourse about a divided kingdom. I think it’s important that we continue to reflect on the experiences of captivity and freedom that are at the heart of the marvelous event presented in this passage. To do this, we have to pay attention to an important detail that can be easily missed: “Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute, and when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke.”
Here, as in the Reading from Jeremiah, we have an experience of being mute, which Jeremiah described as the peoples’ inability to answer the Prophet’s admonitions because “the word itself is banished from their speech.”
The man possessed by the mute demon was not free within himself to speak out in praise, petition, and intercession. In the same way, the Chosen People whom God had freed from slavery in Egypt had lost that freedom when they turned their backs on God and God’s Revelation. And so, rather than the “yes” of obedience and the praise that comes from gratitude, there is only silence.
It is only the truth which can make us truly free, and that truth is perfected in the life and mission of Jesus. This is why Pope Francis has reflected:
Each of us today can ask him- or herself: ‘Do I stop to listen to the Word of God? Do I take the Bible in my hands and is He talking to me?’; and, ‘has my heart become hardened? Have I distanced myself from the Lord? Have I lost my faithfulness to the Lord and do I live with the idols that everyday worldliness offers? Have I lost the joy of the marvel of the first encounter with Jesus?
Lent is a time to ask ourselves hard questions about the quality of our faith commitment and our dedication to the truth. If we find ourselves answering “yes” to the questions posed by Pope Francis, we should remember that we are being given an opportunity today to reorient ourselves—to be converted—and recommit ourselves to the One who offers true freedom: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart” (Psalm 95).
We implore your majesty most humbly, O Lord,
that, as the feast of our salvation draws ever closer,
so we may press forward all the more eagerly
towards the worthy celebration of the Paschal Mystery.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for Thursday of the Third Week of Lent
