Friday of the 1st Week of Lent YEAR B (Mt. 7:7-12)
My professor’s spiritual discipline was to consider death in order to more fully appreciate life (See February 29, 2012). The spiritual disciplines of Lent are to the end of waking up to the surprise of living, and to God who is LIFE itself. This realization in turn reveals in us our subtle and not so subtle courtship with death: the little and large lapses of conscience, the indirect and direct ways we take life for granted and brush off God; the frequency with which we stand silent in the face of unfairness or dishonesty; the ease with which we give into despair or apathy; the insistence on holding on to that which stifles, damages or diminishes ourselves or others.
The movement of Lent is from radical amazement to radical remorse; from radical remorse to radical redemption; from radical redemption to radical recommitment. A close encounter with the lavishness of God’s love exposes in us what is fake, petty, malicious, greedy, and misguided. The experience of God’s care does create in us constructive guilt and contrite hearts for all that we have done or failed to do that has debased life and enhanced death. But a Lenten spirituality doesn’t end there. It moves us to genuine full hearted joy, to deeper humility and truer, God-commanded self-love, to passionate unsentimental love of our neighbor, and to compassionate care for the little ones of this world who are so dear to the heart of God.
Lent then is a time not only to consider what deadens and destroys but more so to awaken to WHO and what revives and enlivens us. Lent, after all, means “springtime.” It is that time when daylight lengthens and scatters the darkness, when winter gives way in us, in our relationships, our families, our community, and in the world. So we move through Lent poignantly aware of the darkness, but believing in and longing for the light of Christ which no darkness can overcome.♦
PRACTICE:
make a list of your longings by using a simple sentence that shows movement:
I want to move from_______________________to____________________________.
Note: This entry is taken from my article: “Arise, O Sleeper.”