The Lenten desert experience, a blessing.

From Our Spiritual Advisor:

My dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

AH! The Season of Lent! And already we are well into the throes of the Season, the ‘springtime’ of the Church’s liturgical calendar. I remember as a kid looking into those long six weeks, the 40 days of Lent, fasting and giving up and the extra prayers, Stations of the Cross on Sunday afternoon instead of the movies. But now it hardly begins and its Holy Week and Easter already.

One of me friends, Fr Bill Richter used to conclude the Ash Wednesday Mass with the admonition: “Have an excruciating Lent!” Perhaps, some may still consider it this severe with the challenge of fasting, prayer and almsgiving. Lent But actually it is meant to be a sort of retreat to prepare us for Easter and beyond. The Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) is the original source of Lent along with the rituals for the catechumens and the candidates, the sponsors and the community to prepare them for the Sacraments at the Easter Vigil.

We can attend Lent in a very serious manner or very casual or not at all. That is our choice. It can stay ‘out there’ or it can have the effect of changing our life. That is our choice. Let’s say that this Lent you want to get serious about your spiritual life, your relationship with Jesus, with your family and friends, coworkers and even strangers. And with yourself as well. May I suggest a way, an opportunity to approach that will help you

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An article I read in a Priest Magazine by Patricia Sharbough, caught my imagination and I would like to share with you. 

The Icon for this reflection is the Gospel of the First Sunday of Lent, Jesus in the Desert.

At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 

He fasted for forty days and forty nights and afterwards was hungry…  Matthew 4:1-11.

The temptations Jesus encounters in his 40 days in the desert, hunger, testing God and idolatry reflect the very temptations that the people of Israel experienced in the wilderness. We see this pattern so often that we are compelled to ask what it has to teach us about our own faith journey. Perhaps this pattern is repeated so often and so consistently because there is only one way to move toward God from the tyranny of our own egos and from the tyranny of others, and that way involves walking through lonely places and encountering feelings of desolation and abandonment. 

The Greek word for desert is Eremos – translated as wilderness, a place abandoned, empty and desolate. In the plural, the word means lonely places. The desert is empty and desolate. There is nothing there. It is in nothingness that we are stripped of distractions, self-importance and self-control. In the solitude of the desert, we come face to face with ourselves, our fears, anxieties, our fragility, our incompleteness, our wounds, our hungers, all those things from which we want to flee. We become aware that we are not complete without God. Our deepest identity is hidden with Christ in God (Col.3.3).

In her article, Patricia quotes from Trappist Father Charles Cummings from his book, “Spirituality and the Desert Experience.” “The desert is there, inside us, to challenge our sense of belonging entirely to any place or any human person, We can belong to a place and a person but not entirely. We can put down roots but not permanently, because the desert within reminds us that this is not our permanent place.”

Loneliness is an important ingredient in many of our life experiences. We’re born alone; we die alone and find many loneliness places along the way. But loneliness can offer us many gifts if we are willing to listen. One important gift is awareness of the deep chasm of emptiness with in us, the abyss we cannot fill, that urges us to reach beyond ourselves, to cry out to God and to pray. Loneliness tells us the truth about our basic poverty inherent in the very human condition.

Many of the Psalms echo this cry for God. Loneliness awakens in us the truth that we are not fully our own, that we come from God and will return to God. Lent begins with the Ashes placed on our forehead to remind us, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” The desert spirituality that Jesus lived and like Jesus we recognize that the purpose of our life does not lie in self-fulfillment or self-realization, but in utter dependence on God’s self-emptying love.

The Lenten desert experienced is designed to help us with our walk through every day life. There are many unasked-for desert experiences that visit us on any given day. Things like illnesses, accidents, sudden death of a loved one, unemployment. The loneliness of caring for little children, or the elderly parent. The loneliness that accompany some professions. The wilderness of a long illness or hospital stay. Through these demands though often lonely and empty can offer the opportunity to deepen our prayer life.

Willing to enter the desert of Lent can help us nurture lifelong practices that draw us to God and sustains us when we encounter unchosen deserts in our lives. In the desert we journey to unknow places with trust that God will meet us there, give us all we need and lead us to gardens of hope. Then we can emerge at Easter with renewed appreciation and gratitude for the gift we are from God and for others.

May your journey through Lent be blessed and a blessing.

Fr. Jim Brown