Life can sometimes be hard, we know this – difficulties of all kinds can come our way.
Ill health, failures, broken relationships, unemployment, financial losses – all these can suddenly threaten our daily life.
There is another factor which can be a burden and an obstacle to a peaceful existence: it is the attitude of brooding.
It is the reaction of looking to the past negatively – regretting what we no longer have, trying to get back what we once enjoyed, feeling unhappy about the present as we compare it with the past, feeling despondent about what is our situation just now.
The 1st reading of today’s celebration has a message about this.
Through Isaiah, the prophet, God tells his people (Isaiah 43:16-21):
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!”
The people of Israel, God’s chosen people, have known misfortunes of different kinds.
But God has given them a land having freed them from slavery.
He now wants them to be free also from… brooding!
Free from looking back, moaning, lamenting, regretting…
God wants them to be ready to welcome the “new thing” he is offering them.
The ‘new’ is, by definition, unknown, untested, not part of our experience…
It is sometimes envisaged as possibly… dangerous… and it requires adaptation…
God says: “Do not dwell on the past.”
Because he is waiting for us… in the present, in the here-and-now, where we are at the moment.
In the 2nd reading, Paul writing to the Philippians tells them a similar message:
“Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal” (Philippians 3:8-14).
This is the kind of straining that is asked of us, followers of Christ – responding to what God offers us now.
Ready to walk with the Lord into whatever new way he opens up for us…
Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/5e-dimanche-du-careme-annee-c-2025/
Source: Images: https://www.scripture-images.com/bible-verse/gw/isaiah-43-18-gw.php unsplash.com (Karsten Würth)