February 26/First Thursday of Lent
Your right hand saves me.
Forsake not the work of your hands.~ Psalm 138.7-8
Take a moment to look at your hands. Think about everything you might do with them this day. You might create (making a meal, playing the piano, or crafting a memo), comfort (caressing a spouse’s furrowed forehead, knocking on the door of a lonely person), instill order (folding laundry, emptying an inbox, or cleaning off a cluttered counter), or express emotion (clenching in anger, folding in peaceful prayer). If you are plagued by arthritis or have a bandaged thumb (as I do at this writing, thanks to some over-vigorous vegetable chopping) you may simply have to appreciate your once and future digital usefulness! Our hands are powerful instruments of our agency in the world. In like manner, the biblical writers envisioned the hand of God as a tool of God’s creative power and loving protection. Those divine hands fashioned humanity out of dust (see: Genesis); God’s right hand led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and delivered them from their enemies (see: Exodus). We are, as today’s psalm affirms, the work of God’s hands, and as his creatures we will benefit from his protecting presence. It can be a challenge for us to place ourselves in God’s hands. We may have had experiences that leave us feeling that the divine hand has brushed us aside or even been raised against us. Today’s psalm assures us that God’s “loving kindness,” or hesed, has no expiration date, and that God will not let us dwell indefinitely in sorrow and pain. For the promise of the Christian life is that God does not forsake his creatures, and that he will, through his love for each of us, stretch out his saving hand and deliver us from our human sinfulness into an existence of radiant joy.
O Lord of the loving embrace, Give me the courage to commend my spirit into your hands, today, tomorrow, and always. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022626.cfm
To hear The Sixteen sing “Si ambulavero” by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ju2ThG-Aj0
