Week 6 Monday (Year 2)

Readings: James 1.1-11; Psalm 119; Mark 8.11-13

No sign for you, says Jesus. Perhaps the problem is the motivation of the people asking him for a sign. He has been working miracles, and so giving signs, for weeks at this stage and he might well have said that to them: 'what do you think I've been up to this past while?' But it is as if they regard his miracles as tricks, bits of magic, and they are asking him to do a trick for them. But the miracles are never tricks, they are always in response to human need, ways of healing, helping, feeding, teaching, casting out demons.

We often express a similar desire: would it not be of great help if God were to give just one convincing, unambiguous sign that would be undeniable, transforming, compelling? Jesus might say to us something like 'but my heavenly Father is shouting at you with the signs he gives you every day, in creation, in people, in the gifts of grace, in the sacraments, in the goodness of genuinely holy people'.

Think of the wonders of the world, the extraordinary sophistication of the human body or of any animal body - each one is a kind of miracle. Think of the trees and bushes waiting now for a first stimulus to set them off once again in the process of budding, growing leaves, blossoming and bearing fruit - each one is a kind of miracle. There are so many signs all through creation of the goodness and care of God. Water into wine? St Augustine says God is doing this every day, sending the rain and the sun to enable the vines to grow, the grapes then gathered and through the intelligence and ingenuity of human beings, turned into wine - a daily miracle, water becoming wine.

We have begun to read the Letter of James, a reading that will be interrupted by Lent and Easter, but we will return to it thereafter. It is a wonderful presentation of another great sign of God's presence and that is a community of people living together in faith and hope and love. Where there is such a community there is a compelling witness to the goodness and grace of God.

James describes the recipients of his letter as people 'of two minds'. We are like that often enough: we waver and doubt and wonder. Lent, beginning in two days time, is a season in which we strive to be single-minded again, focusing clearly and simply on what our faith and vocation ask of us. We have received so many signs already, so many testimonies to the power and goodness of God. They are there, all through creation, and especially in the people the Lord entrusts to our care. It is over to us now, we might say, to submit our hearts and minds to the testing of Lent so that we will be more effective signs in the world of his power and goodness.

The Irish poet Joseph Mary Plunkett expresses very beautifully our faith that in all things God is revealing his creative and redemptive power:

I see his blood upon the rose

And in the stars the glory of his eyes,

His body gleams amid eternal snows,

His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;

The thunder and the singing of the birds

Are but his voice - and carven by his power

Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,

His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,

His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,

His cross is every tree.