Lent: Tuesday of the First Week
 

“So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what pleases me, achieving the end for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)

Saint Jerome offers the following insight on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“For my thoughts are not like the thoughts of human beings, and as far as the heaven is from the earth, so much are my thoughts separated from the thoughts of human beings. For I am extremely gracious and very much for forgiving ... so that once I have promised and it has come out of my mouth, it will not be void, but everything will be completed through its efficacy.” According to the anagogical sense, there is a double meaning here, because the Word of the Lord or he about whom it is written, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word.” God’s word does not return to him void, only through his doing the will of his Father as he filled all things on account of which he had become embodied and reconciled the world to God.” (Commentary on Isaiah, 15)


Collect
Look upon your family, Lord,
that, through the chastening effects
of bodily discipline,
our minds may be radiant in your presence
with the strength of our yearning for you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen