‘Taking Up’ for Lent
‘What are you giving up for Lent?’ ‘Sweets!’ Childish? Of course. As a child, though, to go forty days without sweets was a serious commitment. St Patrick’s Day was the only light in a seemingly endless journey of sweet deprivation.
There is so much more to Lent. The child in us may give up sweets, but the faithful part of us is called to a place of reflection and repentance, where we take stock and accept what we find, a storeroom from which is brought out the old and the new, where we might find memories of more faith- filled and innocent days, when going to church and blessing our face came naturally.
As well as ‘giving up’ for Lent is there a place for ‘taking up’ too? Taking up a more positive outlook, taking up again the call to Sunday Mass? Is there room on the Lenten journey for a bit of social justice, outreach, charity, volunteerism? Space to make a difference in the lives of others? Maybe, if we can forgive a little, love a lot, share more, pray sincerely, be involved, we will find that instead of giving up sweets, a spiritual sweetness, a true sense of wellness, will envelop us.
Vincent Sherlock, The Sacred Heart Messenger, February 2023
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Lent: A time to listen
The Annunciation brings us back to the source of Lent: the announcement of the Incarnation and Mary saying ‘yes’ to her part in it. It is the announcement of heaven that God’s son will soon be born on earth. The mystery that comes to a close in Lent now begins.
The Incarnation is full of people: Mary, Joseph and Elizabeth and the two unborn babies, in the wombs of their mothers, as we all began. God’s son would not come on earth without human origins. He had a mother like all of us. We are remembering our beginnings.
Maybe Lent can be about people rather than rituals. We can give time to enjoying family life, putting the emphasis on giving to family and community rather than on wondering what we can get. Lent can be a time to share with those who are needy, a time to meet some of the needs of the wider world. During Lent we can volunteer our time and personal gifts to others. Lent can be a time to listen, to God’s word and to one another.
Donal Neary SJ, The Sacred Heart Messenger, April 2023
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The Mission of St Patrick
Many legends, stories and traditions have grown up over the centuries regarding Ireland’s most famous saint. It is necessary, therefore, to separate the man from the myth by returning to St Patrick’s own writings, including what has become known as his Confession.
In a simple written account, Patrick’s trust in God and his gratitude towards him who had achieved so much through such a weak instrument, shine out. This in no way detracts from the unique light his Confession casts on this humble missionary of Christ who brought his Gospel of love to the Irish people. A great missionary looked back on his life and saw the labyrinthine pattern of God’s wonderful design.
As he reviews his life journey, which he admits was full of faults and shortcomings, and in the apparently haphazard events of his life, so inexplicable when they occurred, he now sees the hand of God at work in which his hidden plan for the salvation of the Irish is realised. No extraordinary wonders marked his progress throughout Ireland, nevertheless, he touched the hearts of young people who flocked to him and committed their lives to following Christ in the priesthood and religious life.
The essential knowledge about a saint lies not so much in dates and places, but rather in his holiness, his values, what inspired him and his spiritual wrestlings. On these points we are well informed. Patrick sets the record straight regarding his mission and underscores the role God had in it. Often misunderstood in the past, Patrick hoped that his readers would finally grasp how he regarded his long, arduous but ultimately successful mission. His story is one of God’s grace that leads to wonder and thanksgiving.
Maurice Hogan SSC, in the Preface to Aidan J. Larkin, The Spiritual Journey of Saint Patrick
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Embrace the wilderness
There is a Zen proverb, ‘Let go or be dragged’, and no one wants to be dragged around the place. Lent invites us to embrace this wilderness time. As we fast from things that are not life- giving for us we are also actively making space for God to breathe life and love into our hearts once more. We do this in the trust that God who loves us wants us to choose life and to clear out the blocks that stand in our way. This is ‘good news’, a true metanoia (a change of heart). God’s Kingdom is being fulfilled in us and around us, not yet complete, but with every trip into the wilderness we edge closer to that reality. May this Lenten season be a period of grace.
Tríona Doherty and Jane Mellett, The Deep End: A Journey with the Sunday Gospels in the Year of Mark
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Be still, stop and breathe
It is no coincidence that Jesus spends forty days in the desert; this is a very particular biblical unit of time. It recalls the Israelites wandering in the desert for forty years before arriving in the Promised Land; the Great Flood lasted forty days; Moses fasted for forty days in the wilderness of Mount Sinai (Deuteronomy 9:18), as did Elijah near Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:8). We are in good company as we enter into the wilderness, a place where God is revealed. During Lent, it is good for us to remove ourselves from our normal routines, to be still, and to stop and breathe. We need not be afraid of this, for the Gospel shows us that time spent in the wilderness is Spirit- led and we are not alone.
Tríona Doherty and Jane Mellett, The Deep End: A Journey with the Sunday Gospels in the Year of Mark
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Trust in God
There’s an inspiring passage from The Book of Habakkuk where the author describes the attitude of a person whose world has come apart –they have lost their livelihood and income, everything! The bottom has fallen out of their world, as happens to countless numbers of people every day, especially in war zones and many other areas of life. Yet the author, faced with such a huge calamity, can still say, ‘Yet I will rejoice in the Lord / and exult in God my saviour / The Lord my God is my strength’ (Habakkuk 3:18–19). That is just one of the extraordinary acts of trust in God found throughout the Bible. That’s the kind of faith involved in ‘I believe in God.’ At such times, many of us may not be able to make such an act of trust as it seems to defy the odds. We simply allow ourselves to be carried along by the prayerful trust of our faith community as if we’re stowaways on their prayers. Experience also confirms that those with a deep trusting faith are supported by their conviction that God can be relied on, especially during difficult times, because the Bible reassures us that God is on the side of the broken-hearted.
Jim Maher SJ, Reimagining Religion: A Jesuit Vision
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Come into a closer relationship with God
Reflection on the journey of life invites us to appreciate our gifts as well as our areas of struggle so that we can grow in openness to the Lord and to his way. During their time in the wilderness, the Chosen People were changed in their relationship with God, with Moses and with each other. Sometimes, these changes were positive, but on other occasions, that was not so. The Commandments taught them about a God of love who called them into a true relationship with God and with each other. They reminded them that God was close to them, concerned about them and committed to them. Their image of God underwent change, as did their relationship with God. The covenant made them into a people bonded with the Lord in a special way. The law of love was to guide their relationships. While that did guide them at times, on other occasions, they went their own way, even making and worshipping false gods. Selfish interests took precedence at times, and the bigger vision was lost. Similarly, we are made in the image of God with the potential to grow. As people of the New Covenant, we are given a special dignity and invited to a closer relationship with God. Our image of God and of the self can undergo change. Growing in self-knowledge, we can expand the freedom we have to respond to the Lord in living the commandment of love. We can also go our own way, however, by finding and worshipping false gods. The choices we make have implications for our relationship with the Lord and with each other. By reflecting on our experience and learning from it, the way is opened to change and more faithful living in the truth the Lord reveals to us.
Extracted from See God Act: The Ministry of Spiritual Direction by Michael Drennan SJ
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Things haven’t changed that much
I’m sure Noah would never get his ark completed today. The flood would well and truly have passed over him before he started building. There are so many rules and regulations governing the simplest of tasks. There are mountains of paperwork that have to be completed, forms to be filled in, permissions to be got, and standards to be reached.
He’d have to complete an environmental impact statement, let the planning authority know he was creating a temporary structure, undergo a health and safety audit, let the tax office know where he got the money from just in case he was laundering, and he’d have to ensure that all the animal rights organisations were happy with the accommodation he was hoping to provide to the animals.
The world has become a very complicated place. Some of us may dream of an idyllic, simple life where things can be done with ease and basic camaraderie, but that dream is getting further and further from view. It’s as if the world has been made to destroy initiative and keep the status quo in place. On reflection, this is not new. I’m sure Noah had equivalent problems in his day. Sure, Jesus was a leader, too, and it was the status quo that had him crucified.
Excerpted from Dipping into Life: 40 Reflections for a Fragile Earth by Alan Hilliard
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The source of Love
February has many themes, starting with St Brigid and ending with the possibility of a leap year. In the middle of it all is the feast of St Valentine. There were many Valentines in the early church. The first Valentine, who may be the original St Valentine, died around AD 270 for reputedly celebrating the marriage of the early Christians, a practice forbidden by law.
When love is celebrated we sometimes wonder what is being celebrated. Is it a passing, fleeting moment of emotional ecstasy? Or is it the pain of loss? Or are we marking something that is eternal, joyful and beyond words?
A starting point might be to name the source of love –we may think that we are the source of our love. Or we can ask does love come from somewhere else? If love comes from somewhere other than the self, then it doesn’t depend on us. The love from elsewhere can be my strength and sustenance in the act of loving and being loved. It can also tell us how to repair that love. Our Christian faith gives us the story of Jesus of Nazareth as he teaches us how to weave forgiveness, sacrifice, support, care, memory and healing into our story of love.
‘Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God’ (1 John 4:7). Believing this, we know that loving doesn’t depend on us, but on the source of it all.
Excerpted from The Sacred Heart Messenger, Alan Hilliard, February 2021
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‘Sitting with God’
Sometimes, people don’t pray because they feel they’re not worthy of it. They think it’s not for them. Mention the word ‘contemplation’, and they just run a mile. They think it’s for monks and people who have all sorts of qualifications. Prayer and contemplation are nothing more than simply ‘sitting with God’.
The world we live in can be very distracting. Everything gets broken down or torn apart, important concepts are shredded into little bits and pieces. Prayer, and particularly contemplation, allows you to enter into the heart of God, knowing that this world beats as one and that there’s harmony in the world. You are more than broken bits and pieces and individual parts. To be at peace, you have to see the whole, get the picture of the whole, and get a sense of the whole. It is prayer and contemplation that help you achieve this.
I find that when I pray in the morning, I go out into my day with a greater sense of purpose. I’m not just fiddling with little bits and pieces and trying to fit them together chaotically.
Alan Hilliard, Dipping into Life: 40 Reflections for a Fragile Earth
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