14/02/07 Week of Epiphany 6
[Please remember this is a sort of "menu" from which to select. No one has to pray it all]
If you would like these meditations to come directly to your in box, please click here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KnitternunMeditation/
Collect
O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Ps 101, 109:1-4(5-19)20-30 * 119:121-144; Isaiah 63:15-64:9; 1 Timothy 3:1-16; Mark 11:27-12:12
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Mark 11:27-12:12. By what authority are you doing these things?
You go to school and graduate. Then you go to college and graduate. Graduate school or seminary and you graduate again. If you haven't graduated from something, you feel you have to explain, somehow--even if you know beyond a doubt that people don't learn half of what they know in any classroom. A diploma doesn't confer authority. It symbolizes the acquisition of a body of one kind of knowledge, but there are many ways to learn that no diploma could capture.
The authority with which you do what you do comes from within. What lies within you is what made you do all that studying. It is passion and mission, that which lies within you, and it drives you into adulthood, into the place where mere knowledge becomes true wisdom.
Wisdom is hard to define but easy to spot. It was what the traditional teachers saw in Jesus. They didn't know where it came from, but they knew without a doubt that he had it. It carries a sureness with it wherever it goes. It doesn't hesitate to admit its own ignorance of this or that, and remains eager to learn and happy to teach, throughout all its days.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
Cyril, monk and Methodious, Bishop. Missionaries to the Slavs
Psalm 96:1-7 or 98:1-4; Ephesians 3:1-7; Mark 16:15-20
Almighty and everlasting God, who by the power of the Holy Spirit moved your servant Cyril and his brother Methodius to bring the light of the Gospel to a hostile and divided people: Overcome all bitterness and strife among us by the love of Christ, and make us one united family under the banner of the Prince of Peace; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray Pray for the Diocese of Matabeleland (Central Africa)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
Scattering a thousand graces, he passed through these groves in haste, and looking on them as he went, with his glance alone, he clothed them in beauty.
St John of the Cross
Spiritual Canticle, 5.
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
On Gentleness
Once when a hippopotamus was ravaging the neighbouring countryside the fathers called on abba Bes to help them. He stood at the place and waited and when he saw the beast, which was of enormous size, he commanded it not to ravage the countryside any more, saying, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I order you not to ravage this countryside anymore." The hippopotamus vanished completely from that district as if driven away by an angel.
Abba Xanthios said, "A dog is better than I am, for he has love and he does not judge."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Seeing the Beauty and Goodness in Front of Us
We don't have to go far to find the treasure we are seeking. There is beauty and goodness right where we are. And only when we can see the beauty and goodness that are close by can we recognize beauty and goodness on our travels far and wide. There are trees and flowers to enjoy, paintings and sculptures to admire; most of all there are people who smile, play, and show kindness and gentleness. They are all around us, to be recognized as free gifts to receive in gratitude.
Our temptation is to collect all the beauty and goodness surrounding us as helpful information we can use for our projects. But then we cannot enjoy it, and we soon find that we need a vacation to restore ourselves. Let's try to see the beauty and goodness in front of us before we go elsewhere to look for it.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Fourteen - The First Way of Service: Prayer
Tertiaries seek to live in an atmosphere of praise and prayer. We aim to be
constantly aware of God's presence, so that we may indeed pray without
ceasing. Our ever-deepening devotion to the indwelling Christ is a source of
strength and joy. It is Christ's love that inspires us to service, and
strengthens us for sacrifice.
God, you have made your church rich through the poverty of blessed Francis:
help us, like him, not to trust in earthly things, but to seek your heavenly
gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
ETERNAL LOVER, lure me into falling in love with Love. Purge me of being ashamed of my feelings or of being hesitant to share them. May I experience daily your valentines with the grade-school thrill I once knew on this day. By tonight, may I have told those persons dear to me what I no longer dare to assume that they know. Amen.
- W. Paul Jones
An Eclectic Almanac for the Faithful
From page 69 of An Eclectic Almanac for the Faithful by W. Paul Jones.
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Hope's Lovely Daughters"
Augustine said that if we discover hope, hope will have two lovely daughters: anger and courage. But many of us, like good German Catholic boys raised in Kansas, were told that anger was a bad emotion. Nothing would happen on this earth if people didn't get angry. Nothing would change. Anger is often good and necessary. Anger, like hope, is part of the passion of God. It's part of God's feeling for what is not and should be, and could be if only someone would be willing to carry God's feeling. Anger is often a form of grieving for the good things that have been allowed to die. Hope leads us, after the anger, to courage. Courage literally means an action of the heart. With courage we finally trust some of those fierce feelings, our sense of the wild God. Then we can lay our life down in servant hood for the places where things aren't right, where God's people are being told lies and being oppressed. The problem with passion isn't that we desire too much, in spite of what the moralists used to tell us. The real problem is that we don't desire enough! We are the desiring of God.
from The Passion of God and the Passion Within
++++++++++
From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.
http://www.artsci.villanova.edu/dsteelman/tradition/sources.html
Almsgiving
There is no more profitable practice as a companion to holy and spiritual fasting than that of almsgiving. This embraces under the single name of mercy many excellent works of devotion, so that the good intentions of all believers may be of equal value even when their means are not. Nothing can ever so obstruct the love we owe both God and other people as to prevent our having a good intention. The angels sang: Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth. The person who shows love and compassion to those in any kind of affliction is blessed not only with the virtue of charity but also with the gift of peace.
The works of mercy are innumerable. Their very variety brings this advantage to those who are true Christians, that in the matter of almsgiving not only the rich and affluent but also those of average means and the poor are able to play their part. Those who are unequal in their capacity to give can be equal in the love within their hearts.
Leo the Great
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 12: How the Morning Office Is to Be Said
The Morning Office on Sunday shall begin with Psalm 66
recited straight through without an antiphon.
After that let Psalm 50 be said with "Alleluia,"
then Psalms 117 and 62,
the Canticle of Blessing (Benedicite) and the Psalms of praise (Ps. 148-150);
then a lesson from the Apocalypse to be recited by heart,
the responsory, the Ambrosian hymn, the verse,
the canticle from the Gospel book,
the litany and so the end.
(Ambrosian hymn: ttp://www.smithcreekmusic.com/Hymnology/Latin.Hymnody/Te.Deum.html)
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
site needs to be updated
++++++++++
Getting Into the Rhythm of Lent
http://shipoffools.com/Cargo/Features99/Features/Lent99.html
Bishop of London
“Lent can be a time for reducing some of the chronic over-stimulation which is so much a part of modern living; a time when we protect ourselves a little more from the daily bombardment of images and stimuli, the pressures which keep us trapped on the surface.” Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, preaches a sermon for the beginning of Lent.
BREATHING IN AND BREATHING OUT – 'Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness' (Matthew 4:1).
Jesus was anointed by the Spirit at the time of his baptism and then almost immediately, in Matthew's Gospel, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. It is a pattern you see frequently in Scripture: exaltation, followed by withdrawal and testing, which in turn equips the Christ for his public work.
It is as rhythmic as breathing in and breathing out and this rhythm has been built into the life of the Church. Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, opens the door on a period of spring cleansing in preparation for Easter. What kind of preparation is appropriate for Lent, or should we just junk it as incompatible with our busy lifestyles?
Just over 100 years ago, the Church Times reported a scandal. The Scarborough Conservative Association had decided to hold its AGM on the evening of Ash Wednesday. Even worse, they planned to conclude the business with a 'smoking concert'. Now this last decision, in view of the judgment against Philip Morris, might be controversial now, but I doubt whether the violation of Ash Wednesday would cause the indignation expressed by the Church Times of a century ago, which thundered in a headline: 'Save us from the Conservatism of Scarborough'.
You and I know that while even President Clinton tiptoes around Muslim sensibilities during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, the Christian fast of 40 days is hardly visible. Some people embrace minor mortifications and give up chocolate in the run up to Easter, but even they are often apologetic about it.
CARNIVAL WITH NO LENT – When I was a curate in those prehistoric days before overhead projector screens, we used to bring out two cheerful cutout characters on the Sunday before Lent. They were called GUS and TOM. It was a threadbare homiletic device. They stood for the two sides of Lent – Give Up Something and Take On More. We tried, but the tide was against us.
In some ways this is surprising. We live at a time when for many people the spectacle of superabundance for some, of carnival with no ensuing Lent, has become rather nauseating. 'Carnival' literally means 'goodbye meat', and it used to be the festival on the eve of the period of fasting. Now the rhythm has gone and it is carnival all the year round.
At the same time, the destruction of the rhythms of the day, the week and the year in favour of a mere succession of passing moments (hyped, but ultimately deadening), has led to a spiritual exhaustion in which you might think that a little fasting and reduction of stimuli would have a fashionable appeal.
Lent chimes in with another modern movement for re-inventing and improving the self. So many of us are evidently dissatisfied with ourselves as we are. Working under the instruction of some guru, we hope to progress to some better 'me', with a fuller and richer life.
Some of these gurus are genuinely helpful. Many of you will have read or at least have bought the book by Steve Covey called, 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'. Over 5 million copies have been sold over the past 10 years. The teachings of this Mormon sage have impressed Clinton and Gingrich alike, with useful advice like: 'don't prioritise your schedule, but schedule your priorities'. OK, it is as difficult as the letters of St Paul, but the advice is not without value.
In such circumstances – disgust at over-consumption; the evident effects of the destruction of rhythms in daily life; and dissatisfied people struggling to reinvent themselves – the failure of Christians to market Lent seems strange and incompetent.
EMPTYING TO BE FILLED – Lent is the springtime of the Church year, a period of preparation for Easter. God's gift to us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Spirit is life in all its fullness, but we know that there remains an undertow in daily life which carries us away into negativity and forgetfulness. Our lives become old again. We need an annual review.
Perhaps, however, it is not so strange that Lent has not caught the popular mood. Centre stage for contemporary gurus is the individual consumer of life operating on his own profile and image to produce a trimmer, more effective figure. If a person takes up religion in this mood, then it is because God is an asset in this process.
By contrast, the Christian faith promises new life; life in all its fullness to those who open themselves up to God, emptying themselves so that they can be filled with the life that flows from the Godhead.
The Christian Lent is not a time for reinventing the self by a supreme effort. It is a time for opening up to God and seeing through some of the shadows inside us. Jesus the Anointed One faced a crescendo of temptations from desert, to temple wall, to high mountain. He saw through the daydreams about power and possession and emerged equipped by the Spirit for his work.
HEARING GOD'S DRUMBEAT – The Spirit drove him into the wilderness which is indeed a place for confronting oneself at depth. I went into the Sinai with a group of young East Enders, which included Muslims, a few Christians, mostly don't-knows. The experience had a profound effect on us all. The desert is a great leveller and revealer. When you all have to go behind the shadow of a great rock with your loo roll and a box of Swan Vesta matches (we were ecologically conscientious!) the barriers between people and the protections of status and normal routine fall.
Lent in the desert is not possible for many (but don't dismiss the idea that you could be in need of a pilgrimage). Even at home, Lent can be a time for reducing some of the chronic over-stimulation which is so much a part of modern living; a time when we protect ourselves a little more from the daily bombardment of images and stimuli, the pressures which keep us trapped on the surface.
You will know the pressure points in your own lives, but now is the time for deciding how to use Lent. Perhaps by not reading so many newspapers, hearing so much, watching so much, consuming so much, so that we can be liberated from the sick hurry which dulls our capacity to hear the still small voice.
Perhaps it is the time to live more simply in order to tighten up the drumskin, so that God's drumbeat can be heard more clearly in our lives.
Perhaps it is a time for carving out some solitude so that we can become aware of those senses which are deadened in daily life. The choice is yours. You have to decide what is most relevant. The London Diocesan team, quite apart from what they are doing individually, have decided to fast from routine meetings in order to spend more time to be with other disciples in the parishes of the Diocese on their Lenten journey to Easter.
Just giving up chocolate, which can be resumed in a great binge on Easter Day, does little good and can easily fill us with an unhelpful sense of spiritual achievement. Lent is an opportunity for Springtime cleansing and we can encourage one another in observing it. Why should Weight Watchers have a greater care for one another's progress than followers of Jesus Christ?
Thanks to the Bishop of London for preaching this sermon at Holy Trinity Brompton, London, on 14th February 1999, and for allowing us to steal his sermon notes after the service.
If you would like these meditations to come directly to your in box, please click here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KnitternunMeditation/
Collect
O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Ps 101, 109:1-4(5-19)20-30 * 119:121-144; Isaiah 63:15-64:9; 1 Timothy 3:1-16; Mark 11:27-12:12
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Mark 11:27-12:12. By what authority are you doing these things?
You go to school and graduate. Then you go to college and graduate. Graduate school or seminary and you graduate again. If you haven't graduated from something, you feel you have to explain, somehow--even if you know beyond a doubt that people don't learn half of what they know in any classroom. A diploma doesn't confer authority. It symbolizes the acquisition of a body of one kind of knowledge, but there are many ways to learn that no diploma could capture.
The authority with which you do what you do comes from within. What lies within you is what made you do all that studying. It is passion and mission, that which lies within you, and it drives you into adulthood, into the place where mere knowledge becomes true wisdom.
Wisdom is hard to define but easy to spot. It was what the traditional teachers saw in Jesus. They didn't know where it came from, but they knew without a doubt that he had it. It carries a sureness with it wherever it goes. It doesn't hesitate to admit its own ignorance of this or that, and remains eager to learn and happy to teach, throughout all its days.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
Cyril, monk and Methodious, Bishop. Missionaries to the Slavs
Psalm 96:1-7 or 98:1-4; Ephesians 3:1-7; Mark 16:15-20
Almighty and everlasting God, who by the power of the Holy Spirit moved your servant Cyril and his brother Methodius to bring the light of the Gospel to a hostile and divided people: Overcome all bitterness and strife among us by the love of Christ, and make us one united family under the banner of the Prince of Peace; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray Pray for the Diocese of Matabeleland (Central Africa)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
Scattering a thousand graces, he passed through these groves in haste, and looking on them as he went, with his glance alone, he clothed them in beauty.
St John of the Cross
Spiritual Canticle, 5.
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
On Gentleness
Once when a hippopotamus was ravaging the neighbouring countryside the fathers called on abba Bes to help them. He stood at the place and waited and when he saw the beast, which was of enormous size, he commanded it not to ravage the countryside any more, saying, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I order you not to ravage this countryside anymore." The hippopotamus vanished completely from that district as if driven away by an angel.
Abba Xanthios said, "A dog is better than I am, for he has love and he does not judge."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Seeing the Beauty and Goodness in Front of Us
We don't have to go far to find the treasure we are seeking. There is beauty and goodness right where we are. And only when we can see the beauty and goodness that are close by can we recognize beauty and goodness on our travels far and wide. There are trees and flowers to enjoy, paintings and sculptures to admire; most of all there are people who smile, play, and show kindness and gentleness. They are all around us, to be recognized as free gifts to receive in gratitude.
Our temptation is to collect all the beauty and goodness surrounding us as helpful information we can use for our projects. But then we cannot enjoy it, and we soon find that we need a vacation to restore ourselves. Let's try to see the beauty and goodness in front of us before we go elsewhere to look for it.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Fourteen - The First Way of Service: Prayer
Tertiaries seek to live in an atmosphere of praise and prayer. We aim to be
constantly aware of God's presence, so that we may indeed pray without
ceasing. Our ever-deepening devotion to the indwelling Christ is a source of
strength and joy. It is Christ's love that inspires us to service, and
strengthens us for sacrifice.
God, you have made your church rich through the poverty of blessed Francis:
help us, like him, not to trust in earthly things, but to seek your heavenly
gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
ETERNAL LOVER, lure me into falling in love with Love. Purge me of being ashamed of my feelings or of being hesitant to share them. May I experience daily your valentines with the grade-school thrill I once knew on this day. By tonight, may I have told those persons dear to me what I no longer dare to assume that they know. Amen.
- W. Paul Jones
An Eclectic Almanac for the Faithful
From page 69 of An Eclectic Almanac for the Faithful by W. Paul Jones.
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Hope's Lovely Daughters"
Augustine said that if we discover hope, hope will have two lovely daughters: anger and courage. But many of us, like good German Catholic boys raised in Kansas, were told that anger was a bad emotion. Nothing would happen on this earth if people didn't get angry. Nothing would change. Anger is often good and necessary. Anger, like hope, is part of the passion of God. It's part of God's feeling for what is not and should be, and could be if only someone would be willing to carry God's feeling. Anger is often a form of grieving for the good things that have been allowed to die. Hope leads us, after the anger, to courage. Courage literally means an action of the heart. With courage we finally trust some of those fierce feelings, our sense of the wild God. Then we can lay our life down in servant hood for the places where things aren't right, where God's people are being told lies and being oppressed. The problem with passion isn't that we desire too much, in spite of what the moralists used to tell us. The real problem is that we don't desire enough! We are the desiring of God.
from The Passion of God and the Passion Within
++++++++++
From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.
http://www.artsci.villanova.edu/dsteelman/tradition/sources.html
Almsgiving
There is no more profitable practice as a companion to holy and spiritual fasting than that of almsgiving. This embraces under the single name of mercy many excellent works of devotion, so that the good intentions of all believers may be of equal value even when their means are not. Nothing can ever so obstruct the love we owe both God and other people as to prevent our having a good intention. The angels sang: Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth. The person who shows love and compassion to those in any kind of affliction is blessed not only with the virtue of charity but also with the gift of peace.
The works of mercy are innumerable. Their very variety brings this advantage to those who are true Christians, that in the matter of almsgiving not only the rich and affluent but also those of average means and the poor are able to play their part. Those who are unequal in their capacity to give can be equal in the love within their hearts.
Leo the Great
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 12: How the Morning Office Is to Be Said
The Morning Office on Sunday shall begin with Psalm 66
recited straight through without an antiphon.
After that let Psalm 50 be said with "Alleluia,"
then Psalms 117 and 62,
the Canticle of Blessing (Benedicite) and the Psalms of praise (Ps. 148-150);
then a lesson from the Apocalypse to be recited by heart,
the responsory, the Ambrosian hymn, the verse,
the canticle from the Gospel book,
the litany and so the end.
(Ambrosian hymn: ttp://www.smithcreekmusic.com/Hymnology/Latin.Hymnody/Te.Deum.html)
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
site needs to be updated
++++++++++
Getting Into the Rhythm of Lent
http://shipoffools.com/Cargo/Features99/Features/Lent99.html
Bishop of London
“Lent can be a time for reducing some of the chronic over-stimulation which is so much a part of modern living; a time when we protect ourselves a little more from the daily bombardment of images and stimuli, the pressures which keep us trapped on the surface.” Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, preaches a sermon for the beginning of Lent.
BREATHING IN AND BREATHING OUT – 'Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness' (Matthew 4:1).
Jesus was anointed by the Spirit at the time of his baptism and then almost immediately, in Matthew's Gospel, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. It is a pattern you see frequently in Scripture: exaltation, followed by withdrawal and testing, which in turn equips the Christ for his public work.
It is as rhythmic as breathing in and breathing out and this rhythm has been built into the life of the Church. Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, opens the door on a period of spring cleansing in preparation for Easter. What kind of preparation is appropriate for Lent, or should we just junk it as incompatible with our busy lifestyles?
Just over 100 years ago, the Church Times reported a scandal. The Scarborough Conservative Association had decided to hold its AGM on the evening of Ash Wednesday. Even worse, they planned to conclude the business with a 'smoking concert'. Now this last decision, in view of the judgment against Philip Morris, might be controversial now, but I doubt whether the violation of Ash Wednesday would cause the indignation expressed by the Church Times of a century ago, which thundered in a headline: 'Save us from the Conservatism of Scarborough'.
You and I know that while even President Clinton tiptoes around Muslim sensibilities during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, the Christian fast of 40 days is hardly visible. Some people embrace minor mortifications and give up chocolate in the run up to Easter, but even they are often apologetic about it.
CARNIVAL WITH NO LENT – When I was a curate in those prehistoric days before overhead projector screens, we used to bring out two cheerful cutout characters on the Sunday before Lent. They were called GUS and TOM. It was a threadbare homiletic device. They stood for the two sides of Lent – Give Up Something and Take On More. We tried, but the tide was against us.
In some ways this is surprising. We live at a time when for many people the spectacle of superabundance for some, of carnival with no ensuing Lent, has become rather nauseating. 'Carnival' literally means 'goodbye meat', and it used to be the festival on the eve of the period of fasting. Now the rhythm has gone and it is carnival all the year round.
At the same time, the destruction of the rhythms of the day, the week and the year in favour of a mere succession of passing moments (hyped, but ultimately deadening), has led to a spiritual exhaustion in which you might think that a little fasting and reduction of stimuli would have a fashionable appeal.
Lent chimes in with another modern movement for re-inventing and improving the self. So many of us are evidently dissatisfied with ourselves as we are. Working under the instruction of some guru, we hope to progress to some better 'me', with a fuller and richer life.
Some of these gurus are genuinely helpful. Many of you will have read or at least have bought the book by Steve Covey called, 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'. Over 5 million copies have been sold over the past 10 years. The teachings of this Mormon sage have impressed Clinton and Gingrich alike, with useful advice like: 'don't prioritise your schedule, but schedule your priorities'. OK, it is as difficult as the letters of St Paul, but the advice is not without value.
In such circumstances – disgust at over-consumption; the evident effects of the destruction of rhythms in daily life; and dissatisfied people struggling to reinvent themselves – the failure of Christians to market Lent seems strange and incompetent.
EMPTYING TO BE FILLED – Lent is the springtime of the Church year, a period of preparation for Easter. God's gift to us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Spirit is life in all its fullness, but we know that there remains an undertow in daily life which carries us away into negativity and forgetfulness. Our lives become old again. We need an annual review.
Perhaps, however, it is not so strange that Lent has not caught the popular mood. Centre stage for contemporary gurus is the individual consumer of life operating on his own profile and image to produce a trimmer, more effective figure. If a person takes up religion in this mood, then it is because God is an asset in this process.
By contrast, the Christian faith promises new life; life in all its fullness to those who open themselves up to God, emptying themselves so that they can be filled with the life that flows from the Godhead.
The Christian Lent is not a time for reinventing the self by a supreme effort. It is a time for opening up to God and seeing through some of the shadows inside us. Jesus the Anointed One faced a crescendo of temptations from desert, to temple wall, to high mountain. He saw through the daydreams about power and possession and emerged equipped by the Spirit for his work.
HEARING GOD'S DRUMBEAT – The Spirit drove him into the wilderness which is indeed a place for confronting oneself at depth. I went into the Sinai with a group of young East Enders, which included Muslims, a few Christians, mostly don't-knows. The experience had a profound effect on us all. The desert is a great leveller and revealer. When you all have to go behind the shadow of a great rock with your loo roll and a box of Swan Vesta matches (we were ecologically conscientious!) the barriers between people and the protections of status and normal routine fall.
Lent in the desert is not possible for many (but don't dismiss the idea that you could be in need of a pilgrimage). Even at home, Lent can be a time for reducing some of the chronic over-stimulation which is so much a part of modern living; a time when we protect ourselves a little more from the daily bombardment of images and stimuli, the pressures which keep us trapped on the surface.
You will know the pressure points in your own lives, but now is the time for deciding how to use Lent. Perhaps by not reading so many newspapers, hearing so much, watching so much, consuming so much, so that we can be liberated from the sick hurry which dulls our capacity to hear the still small voice.
Perhaps it is the time to live more simply in order to tighten up the drumskin, so that God's drumbeat can be heard more clearly in our lives.
Perhaps it is a time for carving out some solitude so that we can become aware of those senses which are deadened in daily life. The choice is yours. You have to decide what is most relevant. The London Diocesan team, quite apart from what they are doing individually, have decided to fast from routine meetings in order to spend more time to be with other disciples in the parishes of the Diocese on their Lenten journey to Easter.
Just giving up chocolate, which can be resumed in a great binge on Easter Day, does little good and can easily fill us with an unhelpful sense of spiritual achievement. Lent is an opportunity for Springtime cleansing and we can encourage one another in observing it. Why should Weight Watchers have a greater care for one another's progress than followers of Jesus Christ?
Thanks to the Bishop of London for preaching this sermon at Holy Trinity Brompton, London, on 14th February 1999, and for allowing us to steal his sermon notes after the service.
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 8:39 AM
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