Reform

 The Spiritual Waiting Room

Reform

Contrite     Remorseful

Regretting     Surrendering     Resolving

A Change Of Heart

Repentance

(photo and poem by Kathy McNamara)

Scripture: Jeremiah 26: 2 to 3, 13

The Lord said: Get up in the court of the Lord's house and speak to the people of all the cities of Judah who come to pray at the Temple: whatever I tell you, tell them, and keep nothing back. 

Maybe they will listen and reform, all of them leaving their evil deeds. Then I will abandon the evil that I was going to place on them because of their evil actions.

Now is the time to change your ways and your deeds. Listen to the teaching of the Lord your God, so that the Lord will have a change of heart about the evil he was planning against you.

(scripture adapted by John J. McNamara)

Reflection

Jeremiah is given quite the challenge in our reading. God is asking him to stand up in the Temple area and to really speak honestly to the people about their evil actions.

Imagine the scene. Jeremiah gets up and the people are all thinking "Who does he think he is! How dare he say that about me."

Jeremiah knows the situation. The people have been trying to form alliances with other countries. Instead of following the ways of God, they have been following their own paths. They have been ignoring the widows and the orphans. They have been neglecting the poor---just thinking about themselves.

Jeremiah also knows that the people will not be receptive to the message from God. They have turned away from God and they will turn on Jeremiah when he reminds them about this.

An impossible situation! 

God reminds Jeremiah that there is always a possibility for reform. In our human estimation we are always judging when people are going to be "ready". Do we really know?

People can surprise us. I remember the very first class I taught. The students were very bright and also outgoing. However, there was one student who was very quiet and never said a word the whole semester. It seemed to me that she really didn't fit into the group.

At the end of the semester I assigned a paper for the students to write about all the writers we had been studying. The paper that this young lady handed in was amazing. It was far and away the best paper in the class. 

She showed a tremendous grasp of all the material we had been studying. Did I feel foolish! I found out that I was the one who needed to reform!

Lent is a great opportunity each year for us to "change our hearts". The evil that is mentioned in the reading is the evil that comes when we refuse to change our hearts and continue to make judgments about others and to exclude others.

We think we are better than them and do not reach out to them with compassion and sensitivity. The people in Jeremiah's day forgot about those in need. In so many ways times have not changed.

We can blame the poor and look down upon them. God points us in another direction and encourages us to avoid evil and to help our sisters and brothers.

This Lent God says: Reform and embrace everyone in Love!

1. How would you feel in Jeremiah's situation?

2. Why is it so hard for us to judge another person?

3. Is it really possible for people to reform?

4. What is the "change of heart" that you need this Lent?