By MARIA SERMERSHEIM
MEDITATIONE IGNIS
Throughout Lent, the responsory for morning prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours remains the same: “God himself will set me free /from the hunter’s snare. From those who would trap me with lying words /and from the hunter’s snare....”
The daily repetition and the indefinite pronoun those make it easy for the line to lose its bite, so to speak. But I have been realizing lately how pervasive these lying words are; so much so that each of us becomes a part of that trapping group, “those who would trap me with lying words.”
Thank goodness “God himself will set me free!” But the freedom that God gives is one into which we must grow and mature. Theology Professor John Cavadini of the University of Notre Dame often says that God nurtures us to freedom; in order for us to be truly free, freedom cannot be a status given to us on a platter. We must appropriate it for ourselves and grow into it. We must learn to recognize the “hunter’s snare” and actively reject the many manifestations of these “lying words.”
A professor friend and I recently reflected on the general absurdity of some professor-student interactions. In a pattern that is too-often repeated, the professor hopes that the student is interested in his life and his work, and will come to him; but the student so highly esteems the professor that he avoids the professor in the hallway and elsewhere because the student fears embarrassing himself or disappointing the professor. Both parties inadvertently shut themselves into separate spheres by failing to engage the other, depriving themselves of the relationship they desire because they fall prey to subtle “lying words” that say the initiative must lie with the other person – or that a failure to communicate must mean a lack of interest when, in fact, the opposite is the case.
I’ll be the first to admit that I have succumbed, on occasion, to that silly and sterilizing situation. I have also allowed “lying words” to convince me that, though I remember certain people from a single meeting or event, I should never expect them to remember me. I was convinced that it was a more considerate or humble move not to expect another to remember me; but it is so untrue! Expectations are a corollary of respect, and it is to another’s credit if they have a good memory; and if they do not, holy indifference holds no grudge.
“Lying words” create a terrain of superiority and inferiority among people, and they truncate and distort good relationships. Rather than listening to “those who would trap us with lying words” – even ourselves – let us sing with the psalmist: “I will listen to what the Lord God has to say; a voice that speaks of peace to his people, to the faithful, to those who trust in him” (Ps 85:9). If we attune our ears to God’s words rather than “lying words,” “Truth will spring from the earth” (Ps 85:12). Be not ashamed to expect others to remember your name. Be not afraid to encounter those you greatly admire. Do not listen to the “lying words” that draw lines among us. We are all simply people, praying with hope and confidence that, at the end of our lives and each day until then, “God himself will set [us] free.”