A Daily Lent

Happiness Rises Saturday of the Third Week of Lent – March 21, 2020 I don’t want to undersell the difficulty and challenge in de Mello’s words this week. The work he describes with attachments is some of the most rigorous interior work we can undertake. At the same time, we experience a growing sense of interior freedom when we engage this spiritual work. There is a lightness of being that comes from not being weighed down by those people and things we cling to. And we have the experience, Fr Anthony describes, of “happiness rising.” Happiness arises between persons who are meeting without the desire to control, manipulate, or impress one another . . . happiness arises when we hear a beautiful piece of music . . . happiness arises when we participate in an act of kindness that makes a difference in the world . . . happiness arises when we see an object of beauty and stand still just to take the moment into ourselves. I love de Mello’s phrase. Happiness rising does not sugges...

Understanding and Awareness Friday of the Third Week of Lent – March 20, 2020 I remember sitting in front of Sr Adeline O’Donoghue at Ruah Center in Houston in the late 1990’s as she helped me unpack my convoluted interior life. Slowly I was seeing more and more of my interior . . . some of my first glimpses of the person I had become over the years. And I didn’t like what was popping up to the surface. So one day, exasperated by the mess that once again had arisen from my dark depths, I spilled out my story to Sr Adeline, told her what I was seeing about myself, and reiterated how disgusting I found the darkness within me to be. She quietly looked at me – she had a way of looking straight to the interior of a person – and said, “Jerry, what would you like to do about that?” I thought about it for a moment, before saying, “I want to get rid of it! Obliterate it!” She replied, “And if you could obliterate it, what would be left of you then?” I had no response. Nothing. I b...

Hearing the Whole Orchestra Thursday of the Third Week of Lent – March 19, 2020 Every human being sees the world in terms of how they have been programmed to experience their world. This is a long process. We’ve been at this our entire lives. No one wakes up this morning with a world-view that comes from nowhere. Developmentally, we each arrive at where we are today through the process of learning to attend to certain things and block out others. That means my dispositions and prejudices have been conditioned within me. I have been rewarded for some, and thus have held onto them. I have been punished or ostracized for others. Unless I am a strong person, I likely will let those go. Spiritually speaking, the nature of attachments is that we learn over time to give out-sized attention to some things, primarily because we view them as essential to our happiness. And we ignore other things because they don’t seem to “make my life better.” Attachments are not wrong ( right or...

Seeing What Is Real Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent – March 18, 2020 A spiritual practice is a contemplative practice if it helps you see the truth about God, self, others, and the world. Life is as simple – and as painfully difficult – as that. Most persons never question their perception of the truth. They experience life through their own filters (attachments, beliefs, fears) and never take time or energy to consider the filters. And for many persons, over the course of a lifetime, their filters never change. They die in old age clutching the same filters through which they saw God, self, others, and the world when they were 10 years old. The role of spiritual practice is to help us cut through the illusions of life. A good spiritual practice will help you see what is real more clearly. When you see, you may not like what you see, but then, liking what you see is not the point. Do you want to see the truth? Or are you content to continue seeing an illusion? [Before any...

Attachments, Beliefs, and Fears Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent – March 17, 2020 In yesterday’s readings, Anthony de Mello mentioned the filters through which we experience life: attachments, beliefs, and fears. These filters, according to de Mello, hinder us from love. In today’s reading, de Mello says more about attachments, beliefs, and fears. He is not interested in softening his message. De Mello is interested in speaking the truth about God, life, and love. Your attachments: You will inevitably look for what fosters or threatens them and turn a blind eye to the rest. You won’t be interested in the rest anymore than the avaricious businessman is interested in anything that does not involve the making of money. Your beliefs: Just take a look at a fanatic who only notices what confirms his/her belief and blocks out whatever threatens it and you will understand what your beliefs are doing to you. And then your fears: If you knew you were to be executed in a week’s time it ...

Hearing All the Instruments Monday of the Third Week of Lent – March 16, 2020 Much has been written about the echo chamber in which persons in the 21st century live. We listen to news channels that reinforce our world view, keep company with persons who confirm our vision of the world, and worship in places in which we are most comfortable. We hear voices similar to our own and we receive the stimuli comfortable for us. To be outside our chosen comfort zone can leave us highly disconcerted and even pained. When we filter the people and stimuli that reach us (by either ignoring them or denying them), we limit our capacity to love. Jesus said it is no virtue to love those who love you. Love is known by its regard for the other, for the stranger, for the outsider. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said the defining mark of the Christian is love for the enemy. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies a...

Attachment Is Blind Sunday of the Third Week of Lent – March 15, 2020 Whenever I teach on the spiritual life and the word “attachment” comes up, almost immediately a panic flies over the room. The tension becomes palpable. Smiling faces turn into frowns. People begin to squirm, restless in their chairs. Sometimes a person will even say something like, “I knew I would have to give up something I like!” Spiritually speaking, attachments are those things to which we cling, expecting that they will give us life. They almost never do, especially as – or maybe because – we clutch them for dear life. Most things we hold onto don’t have the power to give life to us. They are finite people and temporal things. It’s not within their power to grant life; but we’re slow learners and though experience has taught us better, we still are hesitant to give up what we hold. The language of the Hebrew Scriptures for attachments was “idolatry.” Idols were those things that became gods. In our da...