Thursday of the First Week in Lent

Readings of the Day

“Help me! Please! I’m begging you!”

This cry of fear and petition is a clear theme in the Mass readings for today. From the desperate Esther whose entire nation was in danger if she could not change the hardened heart of a king, through the responsorial giving thanks for prayers answered, to the promise of Jesus that at all times all we have to do is ask and God will respond, the theme of our asks and God’s responses fills our history. We just need to ask, to seek, to knock.

As those in service to people in need, we often find ourselves being the instruments that God uses to respond to these cries for help. It is easy to forget the honor we have been given to be a part of God’s responses to petitions for heavenly help because we do so every day, sometimes seem to fail, and often are exhausted by the effort. But we are important tools in God’s workshop.

The hardest step in this process is often the first—finding where to look, how to knock on the right door, and what to ask. Those steps often bring people to us in a state of frustration, fear, and despair. It is our role to hear what they really need and provide the guidance and help they are begging for. Ours isn’t an easy mandate, because even when we are busy being a part of God’s response to others, we also have the need to seek, to knock, and to ask for help in our own lives. May God give us the courage to be on both sides of that door.

Sister Mary Louise Stubbs, Daughter of Charity currently serves as the director of International Project Services finding resources to help her sister Daughters of Charity fund programs and projects in very low-resourced countries around the world. Her background in leadership positions in several diocesan Catholic Charities organizations, health care, and community development supports her in her current ministry.

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