A Reflection for the Tuesday of the First Week of Lent 

Over the summer, I worked as an intern at a federal court office in New Haven. I spent two days a week reading briefs, summary orders and opinions, and in the end, I created a database of all of the cases that had been considered in that particular office. It was a rewarding summer, and I left the final day of the internship feeling newly endowed with knowledge of the legal profession.

But there were some concepts that evaded me, and one of those very starkly appears in today’s readings. In the Psalm, the response is: “From all their distress, God rescues the just.”

My question is: Who are the just? When I consider the term, I think first and foremost of a judge or an emperor, someone who stands behind a bench with a grave face, staring at a huddled accused far below them, doling out what could be called “justice.” It’s a lofty term, one that is difficult — at least for me — to apply to an everyday person.

But twenty-two years in the Catholic church have taught me that God does not only rescue the powerful and the mighty, and in fact there is a special place in his hand and heart for the complete opposite. “Just” may have etymological origins in “jus,” meaning law or right, but over time it has gained additional meanings: virtuous, moral, ethical, truthful and many more.

These words have their own unique sets of complications, but they seem more attainable and more human than the image of power I described above, and this attainability gives me hope that we, too, can be just, and we, too, can be rescued from our distress. And of all of the words “just” is related to, I find “truthful” to be the most within our reach; we can get into arguments about what is virtuous, what is ethical and what is moral, but in the end, I think it seems wise to start at a place of truth. And as I journal during this season of Lent, I’ll start by laying out the truth of how I feel and how I act, and I’ll use that to help chart a path that will bring me closer to God.