Thursday of the 1st Week of Lent

Today's Liturgy of the Hours can be found here

Today's Mass readings, for the Thursday of the 1st Week of Lent can be found here.

In them we find Queen Esther pleading for help from God. Desperate cries to God in a time of deep anguish. With the continuing devastation in Japan, in Libya, in so many parts of the world this day, her tears and torment speak great truth.

Jesus replies, to her and to all, in today's Gospel with:

“Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Which one of you would hand his son a stone
when he asked for a loaf of bread,
or a snake when he asked for a fish?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give good things
to those who ask him." 

How does this square with a tsunami? with nuclear meltdown? It doesn't. And that is hard. But I can't help but think, as spring flowers start to bloom, and the cherry trees start to blossom, that it gives hope, and with hope we can make it through today, into tomorrow.