A Daily Lent

Dinnerless Camels Saturday after the Resurrection – April 18, 2020 Transformation does not happen by an act of the will. Responding to an altar call is important for some, but is certainly not the end as much as a new beginning. Benchmark life-events may help nurture us, but one-time events do not have the force to shift the deeply ingrained patterns within us. There are no quick fixes in the Christian spiritual life, no short-cuts to an adult spirituality. Rather, we must take care to feed the inner self, to nourish the soul, to give care to that which is at our center, for this inner self will emerge in the world as a transforming presence. We cannot expect ourselves to live differently in the world if we do not attend to this inward dimension of life. For example, in order not to be overwhelmed by a global pandemic, we must be intentional about ingesting spiritual nourishment that will give us resources to keep us from being overwhelmed by the pandemic flood. We have to ea...

The Sunshine School of Piety Thursday after the Resurrection – April 16, 2020 The popular prophets of contemporary culture are not those who tell the truth – which is the hallmark of a true prophet – but those who say what their followers want to hear. Religious leaders, political leaders, leaders of commerce . . . most anyone can fall into this kind of cheerleading . . . another version of dressing up a pig in lipstick. We notice this all around us, even in the midst of a global pandemic . . . some who say things are not really that bad (try selling that to 28,593 families in the United States and 138,487 families around the world who have lost loved ones to COVID-19) or who advocate sacrificing people’s health and lives for the good of economic factors (Capitalism as the greatest good!). In the excerpt below, Evelyn Underhill uses the ominous phrase, “ the sunshine school of piety ,” calling it a “charmingly optimistic outlook.” How apropos is that to our current times? G...

The Swinging Pendulum Monday after the Resurrection – April 13, 2020 During these days of physical distancing in public and separating ourselves from others in the run of daily life, we can feel out of balance. I know there are mental health concerns related to being socially apart from others over an extended period of time. But also as I hear more and more about how uncomfortable people are over the upset of routines and the forced aloneness of staying at home, I wonder if these days of enforced-slowing-down are not a corrective to our overly busy, frantic lives. I’ve often thought that when our lives are out of balance, when the pendulum has swung too far in one direction or another for us, the corrective sometimes comes in an exaggerated swing back in the other direction. An exaggerated swing that seems excessive may serve only to bring us back to the center. Evelyn Underhill quotes the 14th century Flemish mystic, Jan van Ruysbroeck: Ministering to the world without i...

The Pattern Includes Resurrection Resurrection Sunday – April 12, 2020 Resurrection follows death. Every time. It is the immutable, God-given pattern for all of life. Death is not the end. Life is the end. In John 11, Martha, the sister of Mary and Lazarus, goes through a litany of titles for Jesus. Jesus tells her straight-out that he is the resurrection and the life. Then he asks, “Do you believe this ?” He is not asking if she believes in resurrection as an idea or as a theological proposition. He is asking if she believes that resurrection and life are God’s established pattern for the world. Affirming Jesus’ resurrection is not enough. Rather are you willing to enter into this rhythm of birth, life, death, and new life for yourself? This is not only new life. It is also real love. English mystic Evelyn Underhill wrote a great deal about spirituality in the last century. She taught both significant religious leaders and ordinary lay persons with a simplicity that I find c...

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...

Resurrection Sunday Daily Reading : John 20:1 – 9 Focus Passage : So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) (Jn. 20:3 – 9) In the two verses before this reading, we are given an important piece of information about the burial place of Jesus. John 19:41 – 42 says this: At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one ha...