A Daily Lent

Christ at the Center Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 28, 2020 The first understanding in Christian spirituality is that God is the center of life, the gravitational pull that holds all things in orbit. I am not the center. You are not the center. My family is not the center. My country is not the center. The coronavirus is not the center. The government is not the center. The Church is not the center. Our faith is not the center. The Bible is not the center. Only God is the center of life. To orbit around anything or anyone other than God is to place faith in false gods. Idolatry is the Old Testament word for it. Esther de Waal has some thoughts about Christ at the center of life. If I am to put Christ at the centre, as St. Benedict would have me to, that then displaces me from the centre. Perhaps I had not noticed how subtle that temptation was, that insidious danger of putting myself at the centre so that the emphasis was on me – me serving God, me tr...

Listening As Openness and Willingness Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 26, 2020 Benedict of Nursia wrote a guide for persons who sought to live in community out of a common desire to orient life around God. That guide is called The Rule of Benedict. And the “vows” we have explored this week are all integral to Benedictine spirituality. The Benedictine vow of stability means that we stand still and attend to who we are in this moment. We intentionally nourish the soul, we tend to the fires of the inner life. We do not move at such a frantic pace that we cease to know ourselves. Be still. The vow of continual conversion means that we are always journeying on. God is continually forming us, shaping us as the people God created us to be. We continue to journey, to explore, and to make new discoveries, both in the outer world and in the our own inner world. We are still moving. The vow of obedience , as Esther de Waal describes it below, simply asks us to listen . . ....

Facing Our Restlessness Sunday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 22, 2020 Our current coronavirus-induced isolation has challenged us in many ways. Among the challenges, we are finding that when isolated from others, we have to befriend ourselves in new ways. We also find that our usual ways of being productive are disrupted. We may not think of ourselves as geared for productivity . . . until we are forced into a more passive, isolated stance for a few weeks or months. We begin to say things like, “I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing anything,” or “I need to find some projects to keep me busy,” or “I get bored so easily.” Especially in Western culture, we have internal wiring that equates personal worth with productivity. We assume that I am what I produce , that what I do defines me. Then, we are pressed into a situation in which our doing is more limited, and suddenly we find ourselves in a crisis of being. Who am I? Why am I here? These are huge questions, fundamental ...