Lent 2019

 

Lenten Reflection: March 15, 2019

STM Lenten ImageWhat is Ezekiel talking about?  He seems to be promising life to the virtuous and death to the wicked.  If you are just, you shall live, not die.  If you are wicked you shall surely die.  But everyone dies, and death often seems to have little relationship to virtue or wickedness.  So, is he promising eternal life to the virtuous and eternal death to the wicked?  Maybe. Probably.  But to me, this is all about what kind of life you want.  A life darkened by sin, which is a kind of living death, or a life worth living, doing what is right and just?  He is pleading with us to redeem ourselves, to repent, to die to our unfair, evil ways, and to live a good life thanks to the Lord’s kindness and plenteous redemption, as we read in Psalm 130.  Perhaps the prison that Jesus promises for judging, fighting, quarreling in Matthew’s Gospel is not only a very real prison for crimes committed, but also the prison of our own anger and selfishness.  To break out of that prison, there is another death we are called to, a death that leads to life, the death to a way of life that is hurtful to ourselves and others.  By doing what is right and just, we preserve our life, and we shall surely live.

Mary Tyrrell '97 M.A.F.

Mary is a retired Executive Director of the Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry at Yale and a member of the STM Community.