A single word threads today’s liturgy: hear. Hosea pleads, the Psalm insists, and Jesus begins with Israel’s ancient confession: Hear, O Israel. Lent is not primarily a season of doing more but of hearing more truly; so that love can take its rightful form in us.
The first word of love is listening
When the scribe asks Jesus which commandment comes first, the Lord does not begin with an order but with a summons to attentiveness: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone” (Mark 12:29). Love’s source is not our intensity but God’s singularity; there is no other. From that center, the heart, soul, mind, and strength are drawn into alignment, and the second commandment naturally follows: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
This is not a downgrade of worship; it is worship rightly understood. The scribe recognizes it: loving God and neighbor “is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Jesus replies, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” Near; but not yet inside. Understanding love’s primacy brings us to the threshold. Entering the Kingdom requires letting love actually re-order our lives.
“Take with you words”: returning without camouflage
Hosea gives repentance a surprisingly quiet shape: “Take with you words, and return to the Lord” (Hosea 14:3). Israel’s problem is not lack of activity but misplaced trust. “Assyria will not save us, nor shall we have horses to mount.” In other words, the alliances, strategies, and sheer horsepower we assemble cannot heal our defection. Nor can the “work of our hands,” those subtle idols we secretly praise; competence, reputation, productivity, control.
The prophet’s remedy is disarmingly simple: speak the truth to God. Ask for mercy, renounce the counterfeits, and come home empty-handed. Lent’s confessions, liturgical and personal, are precisely this; unadorned words offered to the One who already knows and yet waits for us to say them.
Dew, not downpour: how grace restores
God’s answer is tender and firm: “I will heal their defection... I will be like the dew for Israel” (Hosea 14:5–6). Dew is quiet, faithful, and sufficient. It does not flatten the field; it makes it fruitful. Under this hidden generosity, the unsteady become rooted like Lebanon’s cedar; the withered give off fragrance; the barren bear grain and blossom like the vine. And then the sentence that undoes pride and liberates hope: “Because of me you bear fruit.”
This is consolation for those who feel Lent as dryness or failure. Grace does not always arrive as a seismic change. More often, God keeps us, drop by drop, until roots take, wounds knit, and fruit appears.
“Hear my voice”: the Psalm’s warning and promise
The Psalm takes the theme further: “I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.” At Meribah, Israel’s testing came amid thirst and complaint. Today, our Meribah may be noise, polarization, anxiety, or the constant pressure to self-optimize. The Psalm does not scold so much as promise: if we will hear and walk in his ways, God will “feed [us] with the best of wheat, and with honey from the rock.” Honey from a rock; sweetness where none seems possible. The path to such unlikely nourishment begins again with listening.
More than sacrifice: why Friday penance matters
On a Lenten Friday, abstinence and small deprivations can drift into self-improvement projects or badges of effort. Jesus and the scribe rescue us from that drift. Sacrifices are not abolished; they are given their form. Love is their meaning. Without love, penance shrivels into performance. With love, even a quiet meal of simplicity becomes an act of worship and solidarity.
A simple rule can help: any Lenten practice that does not increase love of God and neighbor needs reexamination. If fasting makes us irritable, let it be paired with patience and a concrete act of kindness. If almsgiving feels like mere budget, let it turn into relationship: a name learned, a story received, a regular commitment kept. Love gives sacrifice its joy.
Not far from the Kingdom: crossing the threshold
Why does Jesus say, “You are not far”? Because agreement with the truth is not yet union with the Truth. The scribe’s insight must become a way of life: a re-centering on the One Lord, and a willingness to be inconvenienced by a neighbor’s need. The distance between “not far” and “within” is often measured in interruptions received, enemies forgiven, time surrendered, reputations risked, and money given away.
In a culture of strong opinions and quick outrage, the scribe also teaches a different stance: ask real questions, praise the good in others’ answers, and let understanding grow. Such docility is already an opening to Love.
Practicing the double love today
- Pray the Shema slowly: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is Lord alone...” Ask which part of your heart, soul, mind, or strength is most divided; and invite God’s dew there.
- “Take with you words”: name to God one idol you rely on (control, image, success, security). Renounce it out loud, and ask for healing.
- Do the double-love test before a decision: Will this choice increase love of God? Will it concretely bless a neighbor? Choose accordingly.
- Trade noise for a brief silence today. Let Psalm 81 be a breath prayer: “I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.”
- Redirect Friday savings from meat or convenience into a specific act of mercy: a donation, a visit, a call you’ve postponed, a meal shared with someone lonely.
“Straight are the paths of the Lord; in them the just walk, but sinners stumble in them” (Hosea 14:10). The path is not complicated; it is costly; and blessed. The Kingdom is at hand. Hearing leads to loving; loving leads us in. May the dew of God’s mercy make our Lenten ground fruitful, so that, because of him, we bear the fruit that remains.