3 Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus, ² who was faithful to him who appointed him, as also Moses was in all his house. ³ For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, because he who built the house has more honor than the house. ⁴ For every house is built by someone; but he who built all things is God. ⁵ Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken, ⁶ but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house. We are his house, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end. ⁷ Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today if you will hear his voice,
⁸     don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion,
    in the day of the trial in the wilderness,
⁹     where your fathers tested me and tried me,
    and saw my deeds for forty years.
¹⁰ Therefore I was displeased with that generation,
    and said, ‘They always err in their heart,
    but they didn’t know my ways.’
¹¹ As I swore in my wrath,
    ‘They will not enter into my rest.’”

Commentary

In this passage from the Letter to the Hebrews there are two words that the Holy Spirit repeats:  "today" and "heart." Paul writes, in fact: “Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts”.  Hence, “today” is the first word. But “the ‘today’ that the Holy Spirit is speaking about is our life, it is ‘a today’, as the same Spirit says, ‘full of days’, but it is a today. It is a today after which there will be no replay, in other words, no “tomorrow”, only “today”. And the sunset may be closer or farther off, but it is today, a today chosen by God, a today in which we have received God’s love, God’s promise that we can find him, be with him”. It is “a today in which, in every day of this today, we can renew our covenant by faithfulness to God. But it is a today, because there is only one today in our life.  I say this not to scare you, but simply to say that our life is a today. It’s either today or never. I think about this. The tomorrow will be the eternal tomorrow, with no sunset, with the Lord, for ever, if I am faithful to this today. And, the question I ask you is this one that the Holy Spirit asks: ‘how am I living this today?’.

The other word found in reading from the Letter to the Hebrews proposed for the day’s liturgy is “heart”. For “with our heart, we encounter the Lord”. But, how is our heart?. Saint Paul gives specific advice in his Letter: “Do not harden your hearts”. Thus, it is good to ask ourselves if our “heart is hard, if it is closed”, perhaps “faithless, sinful, seduced”. After all, Jesus often rebukes the people who are slow at heart, slow to understand. It is precisely “in our heart” that “the today is at play”. This is why we must ask ourselves if “our heart is open to the Lord”. (Pope Francis)

Musical Selection

Monday of the First Week of Lent (Hebrews 3:12-19)

¹² Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there might be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God; ¹³ but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called “today”, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴ For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end, ¹⁵ while it is said,

“Today if you will hear his voice,
    don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion.”

¹⁶ For who, when they heard, rebelled? Wasn’t it all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? ¹⁷ With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸ To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient? ¹⁹ We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief.

Commentary

[Paul] said "today," that they might never be without hope.  "Exhort one another daily," he says. That is, even if persons have sinned, as long as it is "today," they have hope; let them not then despair so long as they live. Above all things indeed, he says, "Let there not be an evil, unbelieving heart."  But even if there should be, let no one despair, but let that one recover; for as long as we are in this world, the "today" is in season. (John Chrysostom)

[Paul] says that those who have believed and shared in the Spirit have become partakers in Christ's "hypostasis" [i.e. partakers, participants, partners] in that they have received a certain natural communion with him. Now there remains the task of preserving this foundation with a pure resolve. (Theodore of Mopsuestia)

Musical Selection

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent (Hebrews 4:1-5)

4 Let’s fear therefore, lest perhaps anyone of you should seem to have come short of a promise of entering into his rest. ² For indeed we have had good news preached to us, even as they also did, but the word they heard didn’t profit them, because it wasn’t mixed with faith by those who heard. ³ For we who have believed do enter into that rest, even as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, they will not enter into my rest;”although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. ⁴ For he has said this somewhere about the seventh day, “God rested on the seventh day from all his works;” ⁵ and in this place again, “They will not enter into my rest.”

Commentary

This is the work of true "rest," namely, not having to run again to the old things while enduring transition and change.  For just us God is said to rest from his creation of the world, having completed its foundation, so it is fitting that also the one who has entered "into rest" not run back again to the old things, viewing with contempt the labors required by the law's virtuous ordinances to restrain transgression. For out of necessity change and a removal from the old institution follows these things. (Theodore of Mopsuestia)

Musical Selection

Rest in My love
Relax in My care and know that My presence will always be there
You are My child and I care for you
There's nothing My love and My power cannot do.

Jesus is here
He is alive and all power is given unto Him
His peace and joy
He gives to you
Brings strength and comfort to your heart

And He says
Rest in My love
Relax in My care and know that My presence will always be there
You are My child and I care for you
There's nothing that My love and My power cannot do.

Rest in My love
Relax in My prayer and know that My presence will always be there
You are My child and I care for you
There's nothing My love and My power cannot do.

Collect