Psalm 1 reads “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields it fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” (verses 1-3).

Good words for us to take to heart and ponder as we walk these last few days of our Lenten journey – especially now that God has given us this magnificent gift of time.

Here, the psalmist invites us to dig back into the Scriptures as a way to re-anchor ourselves in the Holy Spirit’s life-giving gift through which He both calls us back to our Saviour in faith as well as labours to help us in our Lenten journey of repentance – return – and renewal.

Notice how the psalmist doesn’t speak first to our minds – at least, not in the way in which we tend to think of our faith as primarily a reasoned knowledge-based kind of thing. Instead, he calls upon us to consider our lives – how we walk – as well as our attitudes. Do we tend to be scoffers when it comes to listening to our Heavenly Father’s call to return to Him through Jesus His Son?

We want to be those trees, planted by the living waters that both nourish us and give us growth. Far too often, however, we allow the distractions of the world as well as the attitudes of our hearts to get in the way. Let us use this time to set all these things aside and learn to (re)listen to our Loving Saviour’s invitation to ‘get real’ – both in the way in which we come to terms with the way in which our lives are all knotted up with our own priorities so that we fail to truly listen to the Holy Spirit as He speaks to us in His Word – but also, in the way in which He calls us to connect to Jesus our Saviour who died to silence our sins and then raise us up ‘in Him’ (Paul’s baptismal talk) to that never-ending Life that comes only from God as our source.

Over the next week, I will be offering ideas and suggestions on how we can immerse ourselves in that Word – that sacred history of our redemption – as we walk our way through Holy Week. Our Liturgies do it every week – but this year, we will be able to do it in a new and fresh kind of way as we spend some time every day with Jesus – to meditate on His precious gift of Life.