Dear Friend, 

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Lenten Reflection by Rev. Msgr. Joseph Reilly, S.T.L., Ph.D.

During my second year as a college seminarian, I was assigned to a parish where the weekly apostolate was to visit a nursing home. The pastor would go each week and celebrate Mass for the residents. While the Mass was absolutely familiar to me, the setting was far from it.  Up to that point, I had never set foot in a nursing home. I felt inadequate and uncomfortable.

As the weeks went on, though, I began to feel more at home, becoming friendly with some of the residents, and looking forward to our visits. A connection was formed by simply sitting with them, holding their hands, smiling at them and listening to them.  Beyond my own fears and hesitations, I began to see God reflected in their faces and to experience the Lord working through them despite their difficulties with communication.  

All of this would change each week, however, when we got to the Lord‘s Prayer in the Mass. Both the inattentive and the inarticulate would join in, loud and clear, praying the prayer that Jesus himself taught us, the Our Father.  I remember how shocked I was the first time I witnessed it.  Each subsequent occasion moved my heart.

The gospel for today’s Mass is the passage where Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray, giving them the words that all of us learn from an early age, and remain a part of who we are even well into our advanced years.  Beautiful, powerful, personal words given to us by the Son of God which mark us as his followers and as God’s adopted sons and daughters.

Makes me think of how inattentive I can be, even on a daily basis.  How little I think about who I am before the Lord and what it truly means to be a child of God, invited to share in his life and love.  Perhaps that’s what the Lord is inviting us to ponder today, in these early days of Lent?  Doing so might be a great foundation for what is to follow and help us to keep perspective amidst all that vies for our attention. 

The first reading at Mass is from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (55:10-11).  The Lord through the prophet offers us encouragement:  

Just as from the heavens the rain and the snow come down 

and do not return there till they have watered the earth, 

making it fertile and fruitful, 

giving seed to the one who sows  

and bread to the one who eats, 

so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; 

It shall not return to me void, 

but shall do my will, 

achieving the end for which I sent it. 

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Rev. Msgr. Joseph Reilly, S.T.L., Ph.D., Vice Provost for Academics and Catholic Identity Seton Hall University and Rector/Dean Emeritus, Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology . He holds a Bachelor of Sacred Theology from Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, a licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL) from Pontificio Istituto Teresianum, Rome, and a Ph.D. in Educational Administration from Fordham University. He has served as a member of the Archdiocesan Priest Personnel Board, the Advisory Committee on Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests, the Archdiocesan Vocations Board, and the Board of Trustees of Seton Hall University. Pope John Paul II named him a Chaplain to His Holiness in 2005, with the title of Reverend Monsignor. In 2016 during the Holy Year of Mercy, the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization sought priests who were living signs "of the Father's welcome to all those in search of His forgiveness." He was the only priest from the Archdiocese of Newark formally commissioned as a Missionary of Mercy by Pope Francis.