Today we are invited to use our imaginations to enter into a couple of parables: the first, a parable preserved in the text of Jeremiah, but apparently appended from some other source of Wisdom literature. Our parable places before our eyes two images - one of a bush in a desert, the other of a tree planted by a running stream - as a means of contrasting those whose hearts are turned away from the Lord and those whose hearts are "rooted" in Him. Apart from the "stream of living water" we languish
life is a mere struggle for survival. For those, however, who reach out and remain in contact with the Lord, life takes on a new meaning and fullness, captured in the image of the green leaf that remains green even when the circumstances of life become difficult.

Our Gospel offers us another parable in the form of a story - the story of Lazarus, the poor man who sat at the gate of the rich man. Here too we are offered an image - one of great distance between the rich man and Lazarus, both in this world and the next. It appears that only when we make the effort to cross those distances and divisions that separate us from one another in this world do we have hope of being united in the Kingdom of God to come, where the poor and the outcaste are given a privileged place resting in the bosom of Abraham. It is an invitation this Lenten season to reach out personally across any distances or obstacles to "touch someone" in need of our love and support.