A Daily Lent

Wednesday of the First Week of Lent – February 25, 2015 ABBA AGATHON said, “I consider no other labor as difficult as prayer. When we are ready to pray, our spiritual enemies interfere. They understand it is only by making it difficult for us to pray that they can harm us. Other things will meet with success if we keep at it, but laboring at prayer is a war that will continue until we die.” [Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert , p. 145.] Most Christians struggle in one way or another with prayer. People often ask for tips in prayer. They want advice about how to pray. They want to know how to fend off distractions. My sense is that folks intuit that prayer is important, even crucial, but that most of us are looking for a magic formula that some of the saints and mystics know, but is withheld from the rest of us. In short, we don’t want to struggle in prayer. We want it to be easy. So we look for a code or a key . . . just the right set of words to say . . . the book...

Luke 15:1 – 3; 11 – 32 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them. "Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and he...