A Daily Lent

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 . . ....

Standing Still in the Present Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 23, 2020 Each of us has our own ways of running away from ourselves. We have our own patterns that distract us from seeing what is true and real about ourselves, God, others, and the world. But it seems to me that in these very different days, as we keep one eye focused on the coronavirus and another eye on our own altered daily routine, many of us find our usual patterns upset. We may not have our usual distractions available to us. I’ll confess that we’re only a few days into the social distancing and days apart from close contact with others . . . and already I’m finding myself out of sorts. It is easy enough to rehearse good days in the past . . . or to fantasize about what may or may not happen in the future. But I also realize that whenever we fixate on the past or the future, we immediately pull ourselves out of the present. It is a challenge to stand still in the present . . . to allow the present...

Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent – March 27, 2015 Someone asked Abba Antony, “What must one do in order to please God?” The old man replied, “Pay attention to what I tell you: whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved.” [Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers , p. 2] These are Abba Antony’s three keys to life: in every moment, attend to God, who is present always and everywhere; let the scriptures shape your heart so that all you do issues from an interior that has been molded by God’s Word; and have a sense of stability and consistency about your life . . . no flitting around. The third part of Antony’s saying is particularly relevant this week related to endurance and perseverance. It is reflected, a couple of centuries after Antony, in the vision Benedict of Nursia had for his...