Not Like the Pagans

So I think there might be something to the fact that today was awesome and I started with reading the daily mass readings in the morning.  Yesterday that's when the day turned around and my thoughts stopped being so mired.

Also, I actually like teaching and working with the kids, and I think having a day without that but still at work was getting on my nerves a little.  Not in an active way, just a subconscious "Really, I'm spending my limited sociability on non-students?" way.

This is actually relevant to what I want to talk about from the readings.  Jesus talks about how God Our Father is not like the pagan gods, the golden calf and the Egyptians and Mesopotamians and all the others.  Romans, most prominently, I'm sure.

Jesus and the Old Testament are in conversation, talking about two sides to the same key difference.  Jesus talks about asking for boons, trying to figure out how to convince/appeal to/elicit sympathy from God in your prayer requests.  The way you spin your life story to make Venus or Juno or Mars take your side.  No.  The paternoster will do just fine.

The Old Testament describes God's blessings flowing like rain down to us and then staying to bless us.  Will not return to Him until they've done their work.  I wonder how much of the water cycle was intuitively understood at the time.  Because I think the point here was that the Earth did NOT affect God's powers right back.

It's not the old theory of our prayers or our sacrifices doing anything for GOD.  No, our prayers and Lenten observances are about US.  They are reforming our own soul.  God is pleased by our work, we are continually told.  He encourages us to do this work constantly.  But not because it builds His power.  Not because it benefits Him.

Not because, contrary to a random religious novel I read in high school that won't leave my mind until I mention it, our prayers are needed for God and His Angels to defeat the devil.

We are irrelevant to that ultimate struggle.  God in His Infinite love cares about our small, individual struggle anyway.  Just because He loves us.

Because we need Him.  Not the other way around.