Holy Spirit of God, soften my heart to practice meekness…

 
Mark 3:1-6
In some ways this passage from Mark’s Gospel is a study in meekness. A man with a withered hand went to synagogue one day, meekly trusting the Living God to nourish and guide him into life through prayer and praise. The Pharisees in attendance there, with all their lawful legalities, were looking forward to seeing whether Jesus would heal the man with the withered hand, so that they could have hard evidence to accuse him. And Jesus entered the synagogue on that same day as was his custom, empowered by true meekness that is the Mercy and the Holy Spirit he shared with his Father.  The stage was set with three actors in place. Jesus, knowing the trust that was in the softened heart of the man, and the judgement that was in the hardened hearts of the Pharisees, called the man with the withered hand forward. As true meekness met false ‘righteousness’, as softness of heart encountered and addressed hardness of hearts, Jesus healed the man with the withered hand in full view of the religious lawyers. Indeed, that day at Synagogue, the meek inherited ‘the earth’ – the man’s hand was restored! And those whose hearts were far from meek, and hardened by rights and rites, laws and lovelessness, left the place of prayer and praise with feet pointed two steps further along the road to the hell of crucifying the Son of Man who was the Son of God. This side of the redemption won by Christ Jesus when he died and rose again at Easter, each day of my life is potentially a synagogue, a place of prayer and praise to the Living God.  Will I go into this day with a softened heart, exercising the virtue of meekness, or with a hardened heart that is complaining and critical? Will I, like Jesus, be healing others, or will I, like the Pharisees, be looking for a way to accuse and continue along the ‘path of perdition’? Holy Spirit of God, soften my heart to practice meekness.   
 
 
Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will.  (Psalm 40:7-8)
 
Those who are truly humble within themselves will never find their tongues betraying them.
St. John Climacus  
 
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