Forty days

March 16, 2019 

Time for Perfection

40 days. Those new to boating often talk about getting their “sea legs;” discovering balance, how to maintain it, and how to recover it, traveling on water. Hopefully, we found our “Lenten legs” and a new balance to our lives that cultivates radical conversation.
 
This past week we befriended time and explored how the Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving – lifting-up, giving-up, and stepping-up – will support our spiritual renovation. We are not talking Spring cleaning. No, we examine the structural dimensions of our soul. Do you have morning prayer down pat? What about evening prayer? Are you faithful to adoration before the Blessed Sacrament? What about caring for the poor or those on the periphery? Or, Are you too busy saving the world that you are not spending any time with your Savior in adoration? 

40 days. We have just begun our Lenten Journey and it is already time to make a change. We are shifting from time to space. Tomorrow, we start climbing the mountain.
 
In today’s Gospel, Jesus prepares us for that shift by reminding us of our end game. Nothing less than perfection. Jesus takes the religious tradition of his day one step further – love your neighbor AND love your enemy. This is the path of perfection. This is the path of the Father.
 
Pause. Notice. Jesus points to the Father – our Father – and in doing so surrenders himself to the Father and to us. In Jesus, we have everything we need to fulfill our humanity. We are saved by God’s grace poured out in the person of Jesus and in Jesus we discover who we truly are – we become whole, we become human, we become holy.
 
40 days. Our journey has just begun. We have entered a time when it is just me before God who is calling me to perfection. I am alive. Jesus is with me. The mountain awaits.

March 15, 2019

Time for Justice

40 days. Lots of time to adjust how we are in relationship – with God, others, and self. That is one of the definitions of justice; right relationship.
 
That is the righteousness that Jesus preached. In today’s Gospel, Jesus instructs us on how we are to be in relationship with one another.
 
Jesus says that it is not enough that we do not kill; we are not to be angry with our sister or brother, sparing them our judgement or, worse, ridicule. Indeed, right relationship is so central to Jesus’s understanding of “the law and the prophets,” that he says that we should not even approach God without first restoring our relationship with those “who have something against you.”
 
What is the gift you bring to the altar? Tim Flannagan, one of the founders of the Catholic Leadership Institute, would often say “Each day is God’s gift to me. What I do with it, is my gift to God.” Worship is more than simply an acknowledgement that God is God; it is also an offering, a sacrifice, of the best of what we have to offer. Of course, these gifts are not just material things. What are the gifts that I have received from God? Are they the people in my life, my talents and skills, the experiences I have had, or the influence I have over others?
 
We are called to bring the best we have and offer them to God. If, then, in offering our best to God we remember that your brother has “anything against you,” then you are to stop, search out your brother, and be reconciled.
 
Our culture is going through a purification of sexual exploitation; in the Church, in the entertainment industry, in business. People with power – overwhelmingly men – abuse people without power; usually women and children.
 
During the Kavanaugh hearings, some of the reporters explored this delicate moment when, as a young person, one person asserts power over another. What made all the difference? Self-awareness, shame, and confession. A teenage male abused a young woman in his clumsy attempt to express his sexuality. He realized what he had done and that what he had done was wrong. It took him awhile, but he eventually apologized to her; first in writing and, later, face to face. She was surprised that he had carried this shame with him for so long. She could feel his remorse. She easily forgave him – freeing him to continue his path and freeing herself from the shackles of abuse. Justice was done. Right relationship was restored.
 
40 days. These are the days of recollection and examination. This is the time when I review my life and honor the amazing gifts I have been given, weigh how I have used those gifts, lift-up the “first fruits” of my life to God and, when I come to the altar of God, recall if my sister or brother “has anything against” me so I can do the work of reconciliation.

March 14, 2019

Time to Seek

40 days. That is a lot of time for asking, seeking, knocking.
 
In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives a wonderful promise – if you ask, you will receive, if you seek, you will find, and if you knock, the door will be opened to you. This is also our experience. When we ask, we receive; may be less than we expected, or not what we expected, or even more than we expected, and, sometimes, more than we can hope for or even imagine.
 
There is a deep humility involved in asking, seeking, and knocking. We recognize that we are incomplete, that we have a poverty, that we have desires that are unfulfilled. In asking, we acknowledge our incompleteness before God. Before God, we have nothing that God has not given us.
 
Jack Shea, a spiritual writer I enjoy, once described our human condition as “not a world without hunger, but hunger fed, not a world without thirst, but thirst satisfied.”
 
We believe that we will have what we need tomorrow yet we fear that we will not have enough. It is that fear that drives us crazy.
 
40 days. In the desert we become very aware of our needs, that we rely on the graciousness of God to provide what we need – food, water, sun – so we can live. Here, in the desert, we find our faith in God who does not disappoint. My God we take so much for granted and then we jockey to get more and more. A poet once said about our desire for more – “what are we, morticians?”
 
As you reflect on your life, lift-up in thanksgiving one gift that God has given to you. Give up all your distractions and seek one gift that you need to become a better person. Step-up to the opportunities that God has put before you, take a risk, and knock – asking to encounter the wonders and uncertainties on the other side of the door.

March 13, 2019

Time to Follow

40 days. You are in the desert free of distractions and you find yourself looking for a sign - some indication that the cosmos is on your side. You look to the sky to see if there will be some relief from the oppressive sun. You look to the horizon to see if there is any sign of water, or a road that will take you to people.
 
Why is it that we seek - expect, even demand - the spectacular when the truth, goodness, and beauty of the ordinary lies before us?
 
In today's Gospel, Jesus points to himself as prophet greater than Jonah, as a wisdom figure greater than Solomon.
 
Jonah, of course, was reluctantly sent by God - through the belly of a whale - to the people of Nineveh. What is the sign of Jonah? Is it that he was in the belly of the whale for three days and then coughed up on the shore of Nineveh? No. The sign is that he preached repentance to the people and the people heard him and repented.
 
The people - even the king - listened to Jonah and changed their lives.
 
We all remember the story of the three wise men from the east who see a "sign" in the sky - a star rising - and they follow it to a manger in Bethlehem. In a similar way, during the days of Solomon, his wisdom was so well know that the "Queen of the South" - probably from Egypt - came to hear Solomon speak.
 
In the history and study of spirituality, theologians will speak about purification, illumination, and union - that our relationship with God is so real, so tangible - that it eliminate or purifies all that is not God and reveals all that is of God, is wise, is holy.
 
The people of Nineveh followed Jonah and repented, purified themselves of all that is not of God. The "Queen of the South" sought wisdom - illumination - so she could see rightly and found that in the words of Solomon.
 
40 days. Jesus is greater than Jonah and Solomon. Are we following him or are we racing after distractions, desperately seeking some sign? Turn away from the headlines. Forget about the politicians, or the scientists, or the wealthy. Be alone for awhile, listen, listen to Jesus and he will speak to you. He will purify your heart and illuminate your mind.
 

March 12, 2019

Time to Pray

40 days. This is a lot of time to pray. Do we take the time to pray?
 
What is Prayer? I believe prayer is putting my whole self before God and lifting up to God all my joys and sorrows, beliefs and questions, sins and short-comings, hope and desires.
 
Jesus makes clear in today's Gospel - when he teaches us how to pray - that prayer is not babble. Prayer is about being with. Prayer is pondering. Stop here and pray the Our Father.
 
A good friend, Jane, once said that the most arresting word in the whole prayer is the first - "Our." This must certainly have been true for the culture Jesus inhabited with its caste system, blood ties, and tribal loyalties. Do we ever ponder all the people that is included in the word "Our?" There are 7.8 billion people on the planet. Sometimes it is much easier to feel connected to the daughter of a rice farmer in China than to even see the homeless person on the street.
 
Pray the Our Father again. A little slower this time.
 
We pray that the Kingdom of God will wash over the earth just as it rules the cosmos. We pray that we will be given - and satisfied - with the bread we need for the day.
We pray that our sins are forgiven and that we have the desire, the hunger, to forgive those who have sinned against us.
We pray for deliverance - from temptation and from evil.
 
40 days. Four petitions. Father, rule us. Father, feed us. Father, forgive us. Father, save us.
 
One more time. Pray the Our Father one more time and linger over each petition. Where was your heart moved as you prayed this familiar prayer a third time. What space opened up in you today?
 
40 days. Lots of time for prayer.
 
In today's Gospel, Jesus highlights - verbally underscores - forgiveness. Who haven't we forgiven? There are those who have hurt me deeply. Others ignore me or have taken me for granted. Politicians frequently lie, or posture, or spin; we all hide our vulnerabilities. Who do I vilify to justify myself?
 
40 days. Lots of time for prayer. Lots of time to lift up to God those who I will not forgive. I can forgive them. God has given me that power. Why won't I? What is stopping me? What am I not looking at? Whose eyes am I avoiding?

March 11, 2019

Time to See

40 days. Jesus was driven by the Holy Spirit into the desert. He spent 40 days there. Why? Why did the Spirit send him into the desert? Why did he spend so much time there?

The desert is a forgotten place. It is not a place for shepherds. It is not a place for farmers. It is not a place for civilization. It is a place of wandering. Jesus befriends both the desert and the mountain, both the storm and the calm, both the wailing of the grave and the joy of the wedding.

He was there for a long time. We know he was tempted. He was tempted a lot. We know about three of them. C.S. Lewis talks about Jesus as the most human of humans because he knew each and every temptation that any of us have ever experience and, rather than surrender to them, he encountered them, and overcame them. He continually said yes to the will of our Father. Jesus took the time to see clearly; who he was and his purpose.

In today's Gospel, the King will judge all nations. We need to lift our heads this Lent. Take the time to see - especially those who hunger and thirst. Jesus - the Master Over Temptations, the King of the Desert - identifies with the poor.

Sr. Dorothy Stang, SND de Namur, who was martyred in Brazil for standing up for the land rights of the indigenous people, said "We can't talk about the poor. We must be poor with the poor and then there is no doubt how to act."

40 days. Time. Take some time to look closely at how you approach time. Do something different. Do you watch the evening news? Learn about what is going on in a different country. Do you spend lots of time with friends? Spend some time alone. Do you watch too much television? Read your bible or pick up a spiritual book. Lift up in gratitude to God the time you have been given. Give up one poor habit you have with time. Step-up and use your time for the good of others.
 

March 10, 2019

Words are important. Their meaning bridges generations; each with a story and purpose free of ideology or the tyranny of the moment.

Radical comes from the word for root; the organ of connection, taking water and nutrients from the soil, making life possible. Conversion is turning things around; moving away from some and moving towards something else. 

Radical conversion examines the foundational building blocks of our lives so we can surrender our lives to God through mission.
 
Examine your own life; where are your roots? What are the nutrients and water that give you life? To what end?

March 8, 2019

Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the desert – a time of preparation for the demands of mission. The Church, in her wisdom, has given us three foundational Lenten practices – prayer, fasting, and alms giving so we can accompany Jesus into the desert so we can join him in his mission – that will take him to Galilee, Jerusalem, the Cross, Easter Sunday, and the wild winds of Pentecost. It is the same Spirit that moved Jesus into the desert that moves us into mission.

So, as we begin our missionary excavation, we will lift-up in prayer all that limits and expands our embrace of humanity, we will give-up through fasting all that weighs us down and raises us up to those on the periphery, and we will show-up to be with and for others in numerous and wonderful ways.

As missionary disciples, we are called to open our hearts and minds to the expansiveness of the Gospel – a time and place where justice flows like a river, peace dwells in the land, and all glory belongs to God alone.
 

March 7, 2019

Forget candy, give up consumerism. Giving up meat on Friday? What about individualism? Donating to CRS Rice Bowl? Surrender nationalism.

Let me be clear - any spiritual exercise that supports you in purifying your soul, opening your heart to God and others, and sharing your gifts with others, especially the needy, is the stuff of Lent. No judgement here. Just an invitation to go deeper.

As we become adults in the faith, we begin to see the gap between who we are and who we are called to be. We are convicted, not only by “what we have done, but what we have failed to do” (Confiteor). Those of us who have a few more years of experience, wonder about the wrongs we have done, the people we have hurt, the missed opportunities, the time we have wasted, the injustice we have ignored, the flesh pots we cling to.

May God, who has begun his good work within you, bring it to clarity and conviction this Lent.

March 6, 2019

It's Ash Wednesday. 

As we know from Ash Wednesday, we are dust and unto dust we shall return. We all begin as dust, and we all end as dust. Dust – dirt, soil, earth – is a building block of life. It is precious in its own right more for its potential, its ability to interact with air, sun, and water, than being on its own. Ontologically, we come from the relationship of our parents and we ordered to relationship with others – even the hermits among us.

Think of lent as a renovation. You can clean a room. You can spruce up a room by painting it, getting new carpet, new furniture, new decorations. You can remodel a room – changing the dimensions of the space, the lighting, the purpose of the room. You can renovate your whole house – requiring you to tear into the structural elements that both limit and express what type of home your family will inhabit. This is an invitation to tear into those structural elements of our lives.
 
Lent is a whole house renovation for one purpose – and one purpose alone – mission. Just like we do not renovate a house just so it sits there, looking beautiful, that no one inhabits, we do the hard work of conversion so we can be free to take the Gospel to “the ends of the earth,” to a time and place where we can live with, and be for, the people God has sent us to.
 
This Lent, we want to invite all of us to dig deeper and look at those structural assumptions we make about God, others, and self and – like gold that is test in fire – burn away all those cultural assumptions we have about ourselves, about others, and about God. This purification will stretch our hearts and minds to, in the words of St. Theresa of Lisieux, embrace the whole world.

So wear those ashes proudly for God has already transformed you from dust into the wonder that you are and, guess what, God is not finished with you yet.