Word to the Wise
Saturday, March 8, 2014 - Saturday after Ash Wed.
[Isa 58:9b-14 and Luke 5:27-32]If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness and the gloom shall become for you like midday....
Are you looking for a good Lenten challenge - something better than just giving up chocolate or alcohol for 40 days (excluding Sundays)? Give up gossip! Isaiah says today that if we removed "false accusation and malicious speech" from our midst, then our lives will have a great deal more light in them! We don't need to look very far for good example because Pope Francis has spoken several times about the corrosive effects of gossip in the Vatican bureaucracy!
"I gossiped!" is one of the phrases I hear most often in the confessional! I'm sure if I raised the question with each person they may ultimately say, "If we don't gossip, what (or who?) are we going to talk about?" Perhaps we could concentrate on saying good things about people rather than malicious things. The famous political hostess, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, is said to have had a cushion on her couch that read: "If you can't say anything nice about a person, come sit next to me!" We can do a lot better than that! The asceticism of positive speech or at least respectful silence during Lent can bring about a change of habit that could endure beyond Lent. Try it and see what happens! Isaiah will applaud! AMEN