Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
And so it ends today, this part of ordinary time for the liturgical year. It ends with some sadness and challenge: In the first reading from Genesis 6, God is so grieved with his people that He starts over, sparing only Noah and his family and a few pairs of animals. In the Gospel reading from Mark 8, Jesus becomes a bit exasperated that, like the Pharisees and Herod, the disciples seem to be more focused on coming to their own conclusions than in seeing the ultimate authority before 
them. It will be our prayer throughout Lent—Lord, let me trust; Lord, draw me nearer to you as I seek to remove the aspects of my life that keep me from You.
Something else also ends today: the alleluia goes away until the Easter vigil. And what lovely words to feed us in the coming weeks:
“Whoever loves me will keep my word, says the Lord; and my Father will love him and we will come to him.”
It is that promise of Christ, so beautifully expressed in John 14:23, that provides us with bread for this Lenten journey.
