Second Week of Lent, Thursday, March 11

Jeremiah 17:5-10; Luke 16:19-31

"More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it? I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart, to reward everyone according to his ways, according to the merit of his deeds."

As the years go by, we experience that life is complicated. Part of that is because our heart and mind become complicated with issues and experiences that confuse and undermine simple good will and innocence.

In the Gospel of today, Lazarus has an uncomplicated though unpleasant existence. He is poor, sick, abandoned BUT close to God in this state. The rich man is the opposite. Lazarus, however, receives his reward "according to his ways" and the rich man is punished "according to the merit of his deeds."

Life becomes more complicated, but we have to strive to uncomplicate things. Prayer shows the simple path through the "torturous" situation of the heart. What is God's will, as best as I can tell, in the circumstances I find myself? My heart, with its feelings and multiple motives behind every choice, is tortuous beyond remedy. I must rise above earthly complications to see things from a heavenly perspective. In fact, some day we will see things in true, brilliant divine light. But let's fast forward to a heavenly vantage point now while we navigate through the waters of life.

You can be sure that the rich man wishes he had made such a timely reflection. His life on earth and his eternal life would have been very different and much better. He knows that and so he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to tell his brothers about the awful place he is in so that they not join him there. Abraham tells him that they have Moses and the prophets, just as the rich man had, but the rich man insists that if someone from the dead were to go and speak with them they would listen. In Our Lord's story he has Abraham answer: "If they will not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead." Of course, we see veiled reference to Our Lord's own Resurrection, which will not be proof enough for many, as we know well this very day.

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