Thursday and Friday of the first week in Lent

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Wednesday, I failed: wifi access in the hotel in Rome was too patchy. But Thursday and Friday, I posted. Copying the links, though, was been a challenge I was not  able to overcome. There is a link here to thinking coram Deo, if you want to catch up. My wi-fi access at the airport ran out before I could post this!

 

Saturday of the first week in Lent

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Today’s reflection is another from the manuscript of my Lenten devotional. It hasn’t been the best of all possible Saturdays, with little time away from the noise and commotion. So it was good to read these words again, and remember that God is faithful, even when we falter. 

Deo gratias.

Saturday of the first week in Lent

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And the Lord has today declared you to be his people, a treasured possession, as he promised you, and you should keep all his commandments.
                                                                           Deuteronomy 26: 18
But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, in order that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven; for he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous…
Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
                                                                            Matthew 5
Abba Poemen said, “A monk does not complain of his lot, a monk does not return evil for evil, a monk is not angry.”
*        *        *
The Jerusalem Bible refers to Israel, at the making of the covenant, as a people “peculiarly” God’s own. Such ambiguity in the options for translation is astounding: “treasured possession” or “peculiarly [God’s own]”?
I think each possible rendering offers us some insight into the relationship between God and God’s people. The idea of a treasured possession points to God’s unfailing love for God’s people. As the reading from yesterday so clearly testified, God’s extravagant forgiveness meets each of us on the road home from the far country. As the people grafted not Abraham’s family tree, we are God’s “treasured possession.” the idea of a people “peculiarly [God’s] own” points to the identity of the people of God in the world. Israel follows a different set of customs and obeys different laws from those of the Gentiles. So also, Jesus suggests, Christians operate differently in the world. Doing good to those who do good to you is the norm; doing good to those who do you harm or seek to do you harm runs counter to all expectation. But being God’s peculiar people involves practices of humility and love that mirror God rather than copying the world.

To be perfect is to love as God loves, to allow God’s way of seeing “enemies” and God’s way of responding to evil to become our own.

Friday of the first week in Lent

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I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait,
   And in His word do I hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
   More than the watchmen for the morning;
   Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the Lord;
   For with the Lord there is lovingkindness,
And with Him is abundant redemption.
   And He will redeem Israel
   From all his iniquities. (Psalms 130:5-8 NASB)

.        .      .

Today, a challenge: can I be quiet enough in the midst of a crowded airport to reflect properly on the Scripture? The last few days have not been especially Lenten: a trip to Rome for my birthday and to see a friend. Gelato was involved.

Also, though, lots of visits to churches. Although I am a terrible tourist, and hate seeing ‘the sights’, I love visiting churches. I especially love those churches whose long years have seen many, many penitents and worshippers on their knees before God. Rome is full of those–churches where for centuries people have waited on the Lord.

But none of those churches is as dear to my heart as the beautiful and unassuming Santa Maria in Trastevere. Turing the corner yesterday evening, and finding myself in the piazza in front of the church was pure joy. And entering the church, hoping for a moment of quiet prayer, to find Mass beginning…was whatever is more wonderful than pure joy. It was the thing I had most desired, perhaps, as I thought about this trip to Rome. But I had not said so.

As I visited other churches in Rome over the past couple of days, I sometimes wondered about all the grandeur, and all those who had gone before, hoping in the resurrection. Eschatology has never been my strong suit. But there, in Santa Maria in Trastevere, I knew the lovingkindess of God. So, back to the usual tension between knowing God, and wondering how it all fits together. God is good, and yet…things can be hard, I can be uncertain.

So this psalm is for me, and for all who find the way difficult: ‘hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is lovingkindess and abundant redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.’

Deo gratias.

Thursday of the first week in Lent

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On the day I called, you answered;
you increased the strength of my soul.
Psalm 137 [136]
 
. . .
 
Indeed. Strength of soul is what we require, what we seek, during Lent. Queen Esther sought it: her prayer for herself, in the passage set for Mass today, is for courage. She plans to intercede with the king on behalf or her people, but she trusts not in herself or even in the king. Her hope is in God alone; she implores God to save God’s people, to change the king’s heart. She offers herself as the means by which God might choose to do that.
 
And he does. God increases her strength of soul, God changes the king’s heart, and thereby saves his people.
 
So the deprecation of God that Jesus offers in the gospel reading for today describes the God who answered Esther’s prayer and awed the psalmist with constancy of his love and saving help. We can be of good hope that when we seek him–as we do during Lent–he will be found by us, and will give us what we most need: strength of soul, so that we can follow Jesus ever more nearly, and be formed ever more closely to his likeness.
 
And that is good news indeed.
 
Deo gratias.

Tuesday of the first week in Lent

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Yes, if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours, but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.
                                                                        Matthew 6:15
When Isaac of the Thebaid visited a community, he saw that one of the brothers was sinful, and he passed sentence on him. But when he was returning to his cell in the desert, the angel of the Lord came and stood in front of the door of his cell, and said, “I will not let you go in.” He asked, “why not?” The angel of the Lord replied, “God sent me to ask you, ‘Where do you tell me to send that sinful brother whom you sentenced?’” At once Isaac repented, saying, “I have sinned, forgive me.” The angle said, “Get up, God has forgiven you. In future take care to judge no man before God has judged him.”

*        *        *

The desert fathers and mother have quite a bit to say about forgiveness. Forgiving plays a key role in the training of the soul in humility. They seem to have taken Matthew’s warnings about forgiveness and not judging quite literally and very seriously.

I wonder if we really believe the words of Matthew’s gospel. On the face of it—reading the way the words go—it seems clear that forgiving is absolutely essential Christian practice. To refuse to forgive others is to refuse to receive the forgiveness of God; as it says elsewhere in the gospel, “the measure you give will be the measure you get.”

It is vital, according to Matthew and the desert ascetics, to forgive. It is also perhaps the most difficult of all sayings. We are not programmed to give way. Even the youngest talkers learn early on to exclaim, “No!” and “Mine!” We do not, on the whole, uphold turning the other cheek as a moral standard. Anger, bitterness, resentment, even murder can be justified (though not excused: justifiable homicide does not mean the perpetrator is innocent). We learn the right reasons for holding onto the wounds we have suffered. We recognize, of course, the failure in losing our temper over something insignificant. But we also know how to be properly angry, to retain the sins of those who have wronged us. We have been hurt: it is they who have hurt us who should ask forgiveness. They ought to make the first move. We want to make repentance or contrition the prerequisite for forgiveness.

But God doesn’t. God, the Lord, is slow to anger and rich in mercy. God is like the prodigal father, who goes out to meet his son, and interrupts his act of contrition with a call for celebration. God makes the first move…and the second, and the third, and so on. Always God’s mercy goes before us, making the way for our repentance. Forgiveness is part of God’s creativity—yes, God’s creativity. God makes a way where there is no way; God’s mercy is new every morning, welcoming sinners like me back into the sheepfold. And out of that same inexhaustible supply, the fountain of living water, we can draw grace to give away—if only we will.

Eternal Father, you forgive us without resentment and love us without reserve. By your Holy Spirit give us the grace to live in that love and to extend it to everyone we meet.

First Monday in Lent

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Be holy, for I, the Lord am holy.

                                                           Leviticus 19:2 

Then the King will say to those on his right hand, “Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take for your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome; naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.” Then the virtuous will say to him in reply, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you; or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome; naked and clothe you; sick or in prison and go to see you?” And the King will answer, “I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.”
                                                            Matthew 25: 34-40

.         .         . 


I confess I still tend to associate holiness with piety. But the rest of the passage from Leviticus, and the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew’s gospel suggest otherwise. God says, ‘be holy’; what follows is not an order for prayer and worship, but instructions in dealing with our neighbours. To live charitably–that is holiness.

So Jesus identifies with the needy: I was hungry, I was naked, I was thirsty, I was in prison. 
Jesus changes everything. We expect to find God in holy places; he comes to us in a stable. We encounter God in the Eucharist; we also meet God in the person of the hungry, homeless stranger. Jesus is the image of the invisible God; in him the fullness of the deity was pleased to dwell. And he says he dwells among us still–in our hearts by the Holy Spirit; in his holy church, his body and his bride; and in those who hunger and thirst, those who are sick or in prison. 
If I cannot love my brother or sister, whom I can see, then how can I say I love God, whom I cannot see? And how can I profess love for God while failing to love his image in the world, in every person? Holiness is as horizontal as it is vertical. And I am not very good at either loving God or loving neighbor, I realise. I need that new heart, that heart of flesh, that God wants to create in me, the heart fit to receive his love and to pour it our lavishly on others. 

Lord in your mercy…

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

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I have been very grateful for the comments from Saintly Sages on previous posts. These Lenten reflections are simply a part of my own discipline. Blogging them is a form of accountability;  thanks to Wesley Hill, for sharing a link to thinking coram deo on Ash Wednesday and adding some incentive! 

I first tried something like this in 2009, on paper. Over the past 5 years, I have gradually typed up those daily meditations and shared them with others. I would love to make those available in published form, perhaps for next Lent. All the feedback and comments on the meditations on my blog will be of immense help as I revise that manuscript. So thanks, for reading and for commenting. Today’s post is at thinking coram deo as usual.