Finding our Spiritual Rock

According to Jewish tradition, the rock of Horeb, which we read in this Sunday’s First Reading as the rock from which God gave his people water to quench their thirst in the desert, was taken with the Israelites through the wilderness as a constant source of refreshment during their 40 year sojourn. In the Palestinian Targum, which is an Aramaic rendition of the Old Testament, it states that when Moses struck this rock, not only did water gushed forth, but also blood!

It is not surprising that St Paul interpreted this event in his letter to the Corinthians as a foreshadowing of Christ, who is our true spiritual rock, always accompanying us and from whose Heart gushed forth water and blood when pierced by the soldier’s lance, providing the wellspring of the Church’s sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.

The image of this spiritual rock that accompanied God’s people along the journey is a consoling one for us as Christians. We might consider what is our spiritual rock whereby we are nourished at the springs of salvation. It could be those times of daily prayer or our works of charity or those quiet moments we speak to God inside the church or in the beauty of nature.

It can be in those quiet moments before the Eucharist whereby we as nourished by Christ and recall how His Sacred Heart was opened to wash us clean in the water and blood that brought salvation.

If we have not yet found that spiritual rock to accompany us along this journey of life, may we ask the Lord this Lent to help us find it and cling to it in good times and in bad.