The scripture readings from daily Mass this week have been about divine help for people in time of trial. The Holy Spirit has given a word of hope for the many suffering the pandemic, economic hardship, and death.

On Monday, we heard how Daniel came to the rescue of Susanna. She had been falsely accused by two lecherous leaders. Daniel the young defense attorney caught them in a lie that revealed their evil intention. They, not Susanna, were put to death. The Lord heard her cry.

On Tuesday, we heard how the people in the desert were punished for rebelling against the Lord. The Lord heard their cry for mercy. Moses, at the instruction of the Lord, made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole. Whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived (Numbers 21:4-9). As noted in yesterday’s faith reflection, as the bronze serpent lifted up was a means of physical healing for the people in the desert, Christ lifted up on the cross is the means of spiritual healing for us on our Lenten journey. By his wounds we are healed.

An aside: In your daily prayer time, I encourage you to pray with the scriptures for daily Mass. Someday soon I will say more about how to pray with Sacred Scripture, also known as lectio divina. Briefly, read the Bible passage and ask, “What is it saying?” Read it again and ask, “What is it saying to me?” Read it again and ask, “What do I say back?” Read it again and rest with the Lord. Learn more from our bishops how to pray at http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/prayers-and-devotions/index.cfm

Today, Wednesday, the first reading from daily Mass is the story of the fiery furnace from the Book of Daniel, chapter 3. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had refused to worship a golden statue. King Nebuchadnezzar's face became livid with utter rage against them. He ordered the furnace to be heated seven times more than usual and had some of the strongest men in his army bind them and cast them into the white-hot furnace.

We would expect Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to cry out to the Lord to save them from the furnace. We might pray with them that the Lord slay King Nebuchadnezzar stone dead in his tracks. Instead, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego sang to God! They blessed the Lord! “Glory and praise to you!” What’s more, they acknowledged their sins! “You have done all this because of our sins for we have sinned and transgressed by departing from you” (Daniel 3:28-29).

Please do not misunderstand. I am not suggesting that the pandemic is punishment for our sins. Who am I to judge? God alone is the judge of our hearts. What I can tell you with certainty is that we are sinners. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we do well to acknowledge our sinfulness before God, even as we begin every Mass with the plea, “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” 

What followed for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were two miracles.

The first miracle was that, although the flames rose forty-nine cubits above the furnace and scorched the Chaldeans that it caught, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not burn to a crisp. Rather, “the angel of the Lord went down into the furnace with Azariah and his companions, drove the fiery flames out of the furnace, and made the inside of the furnace as though a dew-laden breeze were blowing through it. The fire in no way touched them or caused them pain or harm” (Daniel 3:47-50). The Lord had sent an angel and saved the three.

Then these three in the furnace with one voice sang, glorifying and blessing God again. “Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our ancestors, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.” These are the very words that we recite with them in the responsorial psalm for today’s Mass. 

The second miracle was that Nebuchadnezzar, upon seeing that the fire had had no power over the bodies of these men; not a hair of their heads had been singed, nor were their garments altered; there was not even a smell of fire about them, exclaimed, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!” The king himself came to believe in the one true God. In the zeal of a convert, he decreed that whoever blasphemes this God shall be cut to pieces. Perhaps not quite the response God was looking for, but it was progress.

As deadly as the fiery furnace threatened to be, as deadly as the pandemic truly is, sin is deadlier. It kills not just the body. It kills the soul. With the same fervor that we pray about the pandemic, we must, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, repent from our sinfulness before God.

The good news for us is that the Lord God did not send an angel to save us from the fiery furnace. He sent his own son Jesus to save us from sin. He is the way, the truth and the life that sets us free. By his cross, he sets us free from sin. He set us free for him.

Blessed Lent,

Father David