Listening with hope

A farmer found a little girl, lost in his meadow. He picked her up and said, “Don’t cry, I’ll take you home.” The little girl snuggled up to him and with a smile said, “I knew you would. I waited for you and I was praying.”

The farmer said, “Praying? When I heard you, you were saying; A B C D E F G H I J K. What was that for?”

She looked up again, eye-to-eye, and said to him, “I’m just a little girl and I was praying all the letters of the alphabet and letting God put them together the way He wanted to. He knew I was lost, and he knew how to put them together better than I did!”

Praying, listening and trusting in God is not easy, and there is no magical formula. He will never desert you, but you need to ask and trust. That is also being willing to listen to the great words of this Gospel. “This is my beloved Son, listen to Him.” It’s easier said than done. However, that is the challenge of this second week of Lent to Listen to the Lord and to go off in quiet prayer as did Jesus to hear the Father and get the graces to pick up the cross.

Abraham, in the first reading, has an immediate response to God. He could not have imagined what God was asking of Him — to sacrifice His only son. Abraham listened in trust, responded obediently and went up the hill to sacrifice Isaac.

So, too, did Jesus! His transfiguration gave Peter, James and John a vision of his glory, but not of his passion and cross that

Jesus knew He was first to carry before the glory. The three of them were not transformed by what they heard or saw, and continued to misunderstand what kind of Messiah Jesus was to be.

But we know. We know the price he had to pay, and during Lent we need to listen, and pick up our cross and help others pick up their cross. We come to receive the Eucharist and be strengthened to listen and hope in following the Lord Jesus.

This is the week to listen, act and trust, as did Jesus. Lent is a time to slow down and not just run the race of life for self, but for Jesus and others as a person of faith.

It is also a time to see life and faith in the perspective of one who paddles a canoe or rows a rowboat. Think of how the two are completely different and yet the same. One is paddling forward in his canoe and looking at the future. The other is rowing and looking back at what has been, but also aiming with hope to the future.

Reflect on the story of the man and his wife driving down Route 202. They happened to get stuck behind a car going too slow. The man zipped around the car and noticed the bumper sticker as he was passing. It stated: DO YOU FOLLOW JESUS THIS CLOSE?