2nd Week of Lent : Thursday 9th March 2023

Many think that our life on earth has a finite dimension which ends when we die; therefore, justice must be meted swiftly here and now lest evil-doers go unpunished. But God is the author of justice and the Divine Judge. The freedom that God has given us is not a license to do what we like; the choices we make affect our own lives and those of others. The time for choosing good and evil ends at death. At this moment, God judges each of us according to our choices. On this day, our effort to make reparation ends and the decisions we have made become irrevocable; no second chances are given to us. No one can plead our cause for us. This is the essence of today’s Gospel.

The great Jesuit St Robert Bellarmine SJ reminds us that ‘he who lives well dies well’. A man’s riches are gifts from God, and he is only a steward. He must give an account of it. In the end, an unnamed man in the Gospel who lived a life trapped in material pleasure, abusing his privileges with no love for the poor, did not get to sit at the eternal banquet beside his victim without distinction as though nothing had happened. God’s judgement is a setting for learning and practising hope in eternal life.

The Lenten season invites us to a  humble self- examination of ‘what we have done and what we have failed to do’, and seek forgiveness from the Lord with a purposeful amendment to our lives.

“Test me, O God, and know my thoughts.” Lord, let me share my possessions with the hungry, the deprived and the dispossessed.