A Daily Lent

The Long Way Home Wednesday after the Resurrection – April 15, 2020 Spiritual growth does not come in a moment . . . in a flash of insight . . . or by responding to an altar call . . . or in an inspiring conference . . . or even in an act of kindness that creates good feelings within us. Spiritual growth is a long, long journey. We grow day-by-day, moment-by-moment, the slow accumulation of long-term openness to God’s work within us. I’ve known persons who expected transformation to come in a flash, and who quickly grew frustrated when they did not get the immediate results they expected. The spiritual life is a journey of our entire lifetime. We never come to the end of it. This is the work God is doing within us slowly, moment-by-moment. In the excerpt below, Evelyn Underhill talks about spiritual growth. We talked first of growth and then of service, but we must not divide them too sharply, for the two go together from the beginning. In a good nursery, children are ta...

The Stillpoint Within Tuesday after the Resurrection – April 14, 2020 We are challenged, currently, to be creative, to find different ways to love people. Often, since we have been distanced from one another by the coronavirus threat, we have been told that for right now, we best love people by staying away from them. (And all the introverts say, “I’ve been telling you this for years!”) We make phone calls . . . we use FaceTime . . . try to serve, while maintaining proper distancing. And we pray. We pray for people, if only by whispering the names of those we know who are in need . . . speaking aloud the names of hospitals . . . saying the names of cities and towns that are overwhelmed . . . We meditate . . . we find some contemplative practice to keep us centered and anchored . . . we quietly write poetry . . . we take out a sketchpad and draw or use pastels to doodle or splash some watercolors on a page . . . we regularly drop anchor through a meditative prayer practice (...

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...

Rejoicing in Difficulties Holy Saturday – April 11, 2020 What does it mean to “rejoice in difficulties,” as Brother Lawrence suggests below? That may sound like good counsel in normal times – theologizing when life is more or less ordinary is much different than when we are actually in the midst of the storm! – but in days when we are forced to endure the disruption of daily routines, threats to our relationships, and uncertainty about the future, rejoicing sounds like a long-shot (thank you, coronavirus!). To be sure, it is not our first reaction to our situation. But rejoicing takes a longer view, sees through the immediacy of the current reality, notices the nuances and opportunities that arise when times are tough, and is not limited to what the world looks like in the current moment. Brother Lawrence says we should “ rejoice in our difficulties. ” The Apostle Paul says, “ Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, ‘Rejoice! ’” Today is Holy Saturday. It is a day of ...

Mandate to Love Maundy Thursday – April 9, 2020 Maundy Thursday – or Holy Thursday – remembers Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples in the Upper Room. The word Maundy is an Anglo-French word derived from the Latin mandatum . In mandatum you see the root for “mandate,” thus the word typically means “commandment.” The word, then, refers to the new commandment Jesus gives his disciples during the Last Supper in the Upper Room: “ A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another .” (John 13:34). In these days of physical distancing, when we are separated from other people and from places that comfort us, Jesus’ words to his disciples at the Last Supper present their own challenge. “ Love one another ,” and, “ As I have loved you, so you must love one another ,” yet we are physical apart from those who typically make up our world. Put us in the company of others, and we can come up with ways to love one another. But separate us, ask us...

Centered in Love Tuesday of Holy Week – April 7, 2020 It seems as if no one has been unaffected by the coronavirus, as well as by the many advisories and precautions under which we live. Information changes daily. Our lives are consumed with numbers, bar graphs, and maps color-coded by hotspot areas. Some of us want to gather all the information we can possible take in . . . while others of us just want to keep our heads down and wait for the virus to go away. For six weeks or so, I’ve felt the need to drop anchor daily and to stay intentionally centered in love. There is so much that is uncertain, so much that tempts toward fear, so much that isolates . . . to stay centered in love seems essential to me. I rehearse how I have noticed God’s love alive in the world. I celebrate the creative expressions of love I notice amidst the difficulties of physical distancing. I meditate on love as an active force in the world, not merely as a word, an idea, or a feeling. Brother L...

Grounded Life Monday of Holy Week – April 6, 2020 The heart of spirituality is attentiveness and awareness. These are the attributes most of us need to develop in order to live more deeply, in a more grounded way. Those qualities are needed more today than ever. The entire world is in a panic. Fear is common. Love is emerging slowly. The world needs persons who not only follow local, state, and national mandates, but even more, persons who are attentive and aware, persons who are alert to the underground movements of God in the midst of the threats that surround us. The world needs persons who are tethered to God with a bond that cannot be broken. The world needs persons who are centered and anchored. Read this excerpt from Brother Lawrence for our reading today. In the beginning, Brother Lawrence declared that a little effort was needed to form the habit of continuously conversing with God, telling Him everything that was happening. But after a little careful practice, ...

Practice God’s Presence during Holy Week Palm Sunday – April 5, 2020 On Palm Sunday we remember that Jesus rode into Jerusalem to begin the last week of his life. He must have looked triumphant as people hailed him “King!” It was a reception that could have led to a coronation; yet, the reality did not match the appearance. He was moving not toward an earthly throne, but toward a cross. Progress in the spiritual life is difficult to measure. The usual tracks and markers don’t work. Appearance doesn’t always match reality. Movement takes place slowly, over time, as we give greater attentiveness to the presence of God within us, to those around us, and to the created world in which we live. For some people, that attentiveness comes naturally in the created world. Brilliant sunsets, vast sandy beaches, and mountain vistas consistently make it onto our lists of ways we sense our connection to God. They bring us to awe and wonder. Others find their connection to God through other ...

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...

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...

Is There Another Way? Friday of the Second Week of Lent – March 13, 2020 Over the years, we grow so accustomed to the broad gate and the wide road that we cannot imagine any other way to live. Wide roads are comfortable and give us lots of wiggle room. We learn to maneuver on wide roads. Elizabeth O’Connor, in the paragraphs below (which continue her thoughts from yesterday’s Lenten post), says that usually what jolts us from the wide road to the narrow road is “ an event, or a flash of insight, or a demanding ache. ” And then, after we have been jolted awake, God “ puts in the heart and the mouth the question, ‘Is there another way?’ ” Richard Rohr often makes a similar claim. He regularly says that our two most compelling teachers on this spiritual path are Great Love and Great Suffering. Those experiences have the capacity to shake us awake, so that we begin to ask about and seek out another way. That “other way” is what Jesus calls the “narrow road” and “narrow gate.” Thi...

A Loving Surrender Tuesday of the First Week of Lent – March 3, 2020 I am one of those persons described by Henri Nouwen who cringes at the word “obedience.” I can ascribe that to experiences earlier in life which were painful, in which I was expected to be blindly obedient to a way not my own. Like those Nouwen describes below, the word conjures up negative connotations for me. Yet, I realize that when I love and trust someone, I am willing to surrender, submit, and even be obedient to the beloved one. It is this sense of obedience St. Benedict leans into when he offers a Rule of Life as a guide for living together in monastic community. Within community, not everyone can be in charge. You cannot get your own way all the time and form a healthy community. So Benedict addresses vows of obedience made in the monastery. And the beginning of obedience, he says, is listening. Listen carefully, my child, to my instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advi...

A Larger, Freer, More Truthful Way Saturday after Ash Wednesday – February 29, 2020 When Beatrice Bruteau describes a contemplative as someone who lets go of the old ways that seem “natural” to us in favor of that which is larger, freer, and more truthful, something in me says, “Yes!” and something else in me says, “I can’t!” She’s right. It’s not “natural” to us that we should love others without qualification. But this is part of the transformative process, the slow and messy shift in the interior life to which the contemplative is invited. Our vocation is to live in union with God, and this is the way God loves. This is how Bruteau says it: We have now identified the basic life principle of the communion of the saints. That is what is meant by abiding in Jesus’ love. Live in the kind of love-world he has created, the love-context in which he lives. Do it the way he does it. “Love one another as I have loved you,” leaving out any regard for “deserving” or “lovability,” eith...

The Illusion of Being Lovable Friday after Ash Wednesday – February 28, 2020 Being lovable – the kind of person who will be loved – takes immense energy and attention. Humans of all cultures and races spend themselves on that which will cause them to be worthy of love in their particular context. The radical notion of grace and God is that we are loved just as we are. We cannot do anything to be loved more. We cannot do anything to be loved less. This notion is radical because it is a complete game-changer. If we could integrate this truth, letting it seep deep into our beings, we would cease playing so many of the self-referenced games we engage in moment by moment . . . the attention-getting games . . . the games in which we must pretty-up both our exterior (physical appearance) and our interior (secret and hidden) world . . . our fears of being unnoticed and underappreciated. Again, read what Beatrice Bruteau wrote about loving and being lovable: All this means three int...

Ash Wednesday February 26, 2020 I’ve come to believe and experience that a chief characteristic of God is God’s endless Self-giving. God gratuitously gives away who God is. God is not stingy, but generously spends Divine mercy, compassion, love, and goodness on the world. That this Self-giving is gratuitous means that we do not earn it, deserve it, or win some worthiness contest to receive it. God’s Self-giving is not conditioned upon our actions, our morality, or the vibrancy of our faith. We cannot begin any discussion of “unconditional love” until we jettison our notions that various degrees of spiritual performance get different quantities of God’s goodies. Yet, at the root of most religious systems, humans have developed complex notions for how to win God’s favor. We teach them, preach them and instill them in our young and old. These systems work for crowd control, but they are generally unworkable in helping us relate intimately to God. Self-giving that is not predicat...

Fat Tuesday February 25, 2020 The season of Lent suggests starkness, struggle, and difficulty. Typical Lenten images include desert and dust, pilgrimage and preparation. Words like repentance and redemption show up often. Some folks image Lent as a time for a spiritual house-cleaning. Those images are appropriate and good, with a long history in the Church. They help us realize that we don’t appear on Easter morning to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ without some context, without making a journey toward that celebration. I affirm those understandings of Lent and their corresponding images, but I want to suggest another image for Lent. Lent is also the time to dig deeper into the heart of God, to find ourselves immersed more completely in the mercy, compassion, and generosity that are at the center of life. This may not be a typical Lenten theme, but I believe it carries significance for us. The journey with Jesus toward Holy Week, the cross and Resurrection is a pilgrimage o...

Wednesday of Holy Week Daily Reading : Matthew 26:14 – 25 Focus Passage : When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, "Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me." They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, "Surely not I, Lord?" Jesus replied, "The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me." (Matt. 26:20 – 23) The daily readings walking us through Holy Week give us a glimpse of the events which shape these difficult days in Jesus’ life. We cannot dismiss the intensity of their “passion” by simply saying, “Jesus was the Son of God, so none of this trial actually touched him.” Jesus was also the Son of Humanity (Son of Man in most translations), fully alive and a complete human. Yes, Jesus was touched by the defections and betrayals and accusations of the week. The Gospel writers knew what those sitting around the ta...

Tuesday of Holy Week Daily Reading : John 13:21 – 38 Focus Passage : After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, "Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me." His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, "Ask him which one he means." Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, "Lord, who is it?" Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish. . . ." “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (Jn. 13:21 – 26, 34 – 35) Today’s longer reading begins with a disciple about to betray Jesus and ends foretelling that the disciple called “the Rock” will disown Jesus. Betr...