Overview:

Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

A Reflection for the Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts (Ps 95:7-8).

Find today’s readings here.

It is hard to make it too far in this world without your heart being hardened at least a little or for a time. I think of such a time that, with over a decade of hindsight, feels silly to excavate, yet stays with me. In college, a relationship with a young man left me feeling used and worthless. I responded by putting my walls up; no one was getting in, and no one was going to hurt me. A good friend affectionately called me “the ice queen” (well before Disney’s “Frozen” franchise made that a desirable description), and I went a couple of years without once crying. (The dam finally broke, funnily enough, while I was with my family in an AMC movie theater watching Anne Hathaway’s opening scene in the 2012 remake of “Les Misérables.” Today, even a sappy commercial can get me misty-eyed.) 

I don’t blame myself for putting my guard up. The problem is that it can be difficult to selectively harden your heart. In keeping out those who may hurt me, I was also putting distance between myself and those who loved me, including God. While outwardly I was becoming more religiously observant—teaching confirmation class, joining the chapel choir, studying Catholic history and literature—I was keeping God away from the broken parts, the parts of me that most needed to know his loving mercy. God was no doubt trying to reach and heal me, but I wasn’t ready to listen. 

In today’s first reading, God delivers some harsh words to Israel, “the nation that does not listen to the voice of the LORD,” through the prophet Jeremiah. 

They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts
and turned their backs, not their faces, to me (7:24).

But what jumps out to me is not God’s rebuke, but his unrelenting pursuit of his wayward people. God wants them to listen to his voice not for his own sake but “so that [they] may prosper.” 

From the day that your fathers left the land of Egypt even to this day,
I have sent you untiringly all my servants the prophets (7:25).

God is just as untiring in his pursuit of all his children. I think of countless people and insights and experiences that God has put along my path, helping me to hear his voice and enter into a more honest relationship with him. He does the same for all those whose hearts have been hardened by pain far worse than I’ve experienced in my life. This Lent, we’re called to listen to the voice that asks to enter into that pain and guide us along the path of healing. 

Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides (Ps 95:6-7).

Ashley McKinless is an executive editor at America and co-host of the ‘Jesuitical’ podcast.