The earliest substantial account of St David that we have access to is the Buchedd Dewi, written by Rhygyfarch in the late 11th century. Rhygyfarch claimed it was based on documents found in the cathedral archives. Historians have been able to use this and other materials to put together the life of David along the lines I am outlining here.
St David was a Celtic monk, preacher, teacher and bishop, who was born around 500 and died around 589. He was of a noble family, his mother being St Non. He was taught by St Paulinus. He wrote a strict monastic rule, inspired by Egyptian monasticism, and founded a monastery at what is now St David’s in Menevia in South West Wales. The monks were to drink only water and eat only bread with salt and herbs, and spend the evenings in prayer, reading and writing. No personal possessions were allowed. Asceticism was stressed. The rule even required monks, not animals, to pull the plough. Once he was made a bishop he stayed with his community. A cathedral still stands on the site.
Despite what looks like a focus on self-improvement by will-power in these monastic practices, he was a renowned defender of our need of God’s grace against the Pelagian heresy that put forward a view of man as capable of much without God’s help. As a bishop, he presided over two synods to combat Pelagianism, the first at Brefi around 560 and the second at Caerleon (the “Synod of Victory”) around 569.
Under his inspiration and influence monks were sent out to establish monasteries and to evangelise what were then pagan area across Wales, Cornwall, Ireland and Brittany and adjacent provinces in France.
It is recorded that in his last sermon he exhorted his followers thus: these as "Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us." It points to a man, who illuminated by the truth of the Gospel as formulated in the Orthodox faith of the Church, was aware of his dependence on God, and found great joy in that dependence, a dependence that, lived in a child-like spirit, allowed him to do each task as just one more small request and gift from God who would bring his efforts to completion by grace. "Do ye the little things in life" ("Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd") is today a very well known phrase in Welsh.
Let us ask God for a share in David’s spirituality that we too may be lamps lighting up the house, and cities built on a hill, drawing people to God by the visibility of divine grace at work in us.
‘If they will not listen to Moses or the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead,’ (Lk 16:31) Abraham tells the rich man at the end of the parable we find in today’s Gospel. The rich man, dead and suffering in hell, had thought that, if someone went back from the dead to confirm the message of Moses and the prophets, his brothers would believe and repent, but, in the words Jesus puts into the mouth of Abraham, we find a clear reference to the fact that, even after Christ’s resurrection there will be those who refuse to accept the truth of God’s offer of salvation and the need for repentance.
Now, of course, it’s all too tempting to interpret that saying as applying to other people – we Christians, after all, believe Christ has risen from the dead; we believe that he shows us, in himself, the way to salvation, so we’re all right, aren’t we? Well, that doesn’t seem quite to be the point Jesus is making. For the story of the rich man and Lazarus is also, of course, about how we behave: if the point is that the rich man should have known from Moses and the prophets of his duty to treat the poor man Lazarus with care, rather than simply pursuing his own pleasure.
In that case, though, how much more must we who profess our faith in the risen Christ ask ourselves, especially during this season of repentance, whether we really allow the Spirit of Christ to govern our lives and actions, or whether, instead, we act selfishly, setting our sights on lesser goods even though our faith teaches us that this will harm not only those around us, but in the end ourselves too.
Today’s readings remind us of two virtues that are at the core of Christian life: justice and humility. The first reading invites us to promote justice and become ourselves instruments of uprightness in the society. “Make justice your aim”; these words are powerful. They just mean: watching justice being trampled on and doing nothing means supporting injustice. Some Christians, at many times in the past and even today, have managed to find other aspects of their Christian life to hide in, in order to avoid the responsibility to uphold and speak out for justice in the world. It might happen that some even try to argue that justice is a secondary aspect of our Christian life. However, it is a core aspect of the Christian life and a commandment for all of us as Christians; not only for Mother Teresa of Kolkata or Bartolommeo de Las Casas.
To this aspect is linked another one very important: humility. In today’s gospel, Jesus makes it clear that the religious leaders, who did not care about justice, had grown at the same time proud and wicked. They had become unjust and arrogant. Their arrogance made them despise the poor and all the others they were supposed to care for.
One would be unfair towards the Scribes and the Pharisees if one had to assume that they were the ones to impose their status to the people. We are very much aware that, just it is in our times, religious leaders get a special treatment by those faithful to their religion. Thus, Jesus words could be understood at the same time as a criticism and a warning. The system favouring that attitude, it had become a trap for religious leaders of Jesus' time.
Lent is a good time to call back Christians to justice and humility. It is even a better time to encourage religious authorities to be humble as their sole master, Jesus Christ, was humble and gave the good example by speaking out for justice. Let us pray that this Lenten season becomes an opportunity for all believers to shape their lives to Christ's, the humble, meek and just Lord.
Cardinal Hume wrote: 'There is a certain solidarity in sin.' The passion and death of Christ happened as a consequence of the sins of many: we might think of Judas, Pilate, the Roman soldiers, the religious leaders and the people in Jerusalem, even the cowardly disciples who abandoned Jesus in his hour of trial. Looking at the bigger picture, it is 'the sinfulness of the rebellious and stiff-necked world, the sin of men and women down the ages' that leads to the Cross. In this way, since all of us have sinned, all of us are implicated in the rejection of God's Son.
The prayer of Daniel, in today's first reading, rightly places the emphasis on the whole community's failure to love and obey the Lord, the God of Israel: 'we have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly, we have betrayed your commandments and your ordinances and turned away from them.' All have sinned, and no amount of mutual support and concerted effort will get us out of the mess we've made. We have all fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). As a result, none of us has the strength to break out of the cycle of sin, unless we look to the One who has broken into our lives to transform them from within.
The only way out of sin is Jesus, who is the Way to the Father, because he shares all our sufferings – the effects of sin – without having committed sin himself (cf. Heb. 2:17, 4:15). On the Cross, Christ takes all our sin upon himself, in order to forgive all our sin (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21). Thus, no sinner is left beyond God's offer of salvation, no wayward soul is beyond redemption. Christ came to call sinners, not the righteous (Mt. 9:13). So, it is good to recognise our 'solidarity in sin', as long as we do not stop there. Our true solidarity is to be found in Christ the Redeemer.
What’s the Transfiguration doing here in Lent? In today’s Gospel we read of that mysterious event when Peter, James, and John witnessed the revelation of Jesus’ divine glory as the Father’s beloved Son, but Lent might not seem, on first appearances, to be the most obvious time to commemorate that particular event in the life of Christ. After all, we usually think of Lent as rather an austere time – wouldn’t the brightness of the divine glory fit rather better with the white vestments of Eastertide than Lent’s sombre purple?
And when you think about it, the question actually goes rather deeper than that; because at a very basic level, the explanation for why we read about the Transfiguration in Lent is that, at least in St Matthew’s account, it’s clear that it happened not long before Christ’s Passion, but that draws our attention to the trickier question of what the Transfiguration itself is all about.
And actually, the timing of the Transfiguration can help us understand this, I think. If it came not long before the terrible events of Christ’s Passion, then we can see it as a glimpse of the glory that would be definitively revealed in Christ’s Resurrection, a “preview”, if you like, to strengthen the disciples and give them hope during the coming troubles: no matter how bad things were going to get, they had seen Jesus arrayed in heavenly brightness talking to Moses and Elijah, and heard as a voice from heaven identifying him as the beloved Son.
And in a sense, hearing the Gospel account of the Transfiguration today has something of a similar role in the course of our Lenten journey. It reminds us of the coming celebration of the Resurrection: if Lent is a time when we remember Christ’s suffering in solidarity with us in our humanity, we know that we will nevertheless celebrate his triumph over death by his divine power at Easter. Likewise, if Lent is a time when we remember our sinfulness, and through our penance recognise our need for God’s mercy, we do so not despairing of our salvation, but always aware of the triumph over sin and death which Christ’s Resurrection reveals.
And that, I think, actually brings out another aspect of what this Lenten season is about. We do, of course, need to focus on different stages of Christ’s life at different times – that’s just how our minds work – we need to spend some time thinking about Christ’s sufferings in order better to celebrate his Resurrection and so on; but Lent is also a time of preparation for Easter in the sense that we remind ourselves what it means to live in the light of the Resurrection.
As St Paul said to the Philippians in today’s second reading, “For us, our homeland is in heaven.” Just as the Transfiguration revealed the truth that, already before the Resurrection, he was truly God as well as truly man – God dwelling on earth among human beings – so we are called to remember at this time that in a certain sense already here and now we share through our Baptism in the Resurrection life, the life with God in heaven which Jesus has made possible for us.
And if we think about the traditional elements of Lenten penance – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving – we can see how this pans out. In encouraging us to pray, the Church is helping us to grow in our awareness of the presence of God in our lives; in prayer, we hold our whole lives – our activities and our desires – in His presence. In fasting – restraining in some way our material consumption – we express our recognition that all the good gifts God gives us are nothing compared to the greatest gift of himself, which he has given us in Christ. In almsgiving, we learn to see Christ in those in need, and also to imitate, in our own small and insignificant ways, that love for mankind which he has shown us.
So, then, the Transfiguration belongs in Lent not only as a reminder of our goal – of the divine glory revealed in the Resurrection – though it does that too. But it also reminds us, helped by our Lenten penance, to see the presence of God in every moment of our lives.
One common reading of Christ’s relationship to the Pharisees runs like this: the Pharisees were legalistic, bound to the recitation of inert laws and the practice of a moribund religion characterised by an ever growing battery of precepts and injunctions; Christ came to liberate us from such things, freeing us to the new life of grace, marked by the glorious freedom of the Children of God.
In fact, such a reading risks maligning the Pharisees. It is difficult to square the Jewish faith we see Christ practising - with all its festivals, feasts, communal gatherings and religious diversity - with a simple image of a dead religion chained to an inert set of laws. For all that Christ does indeed take aim at Pharisaic legalism and hypocrisy, both he and they share a desire to renew the covenant people in faith and morals, and when Christ deals with the specifics of Pharisaic teaching - as he does today in one of his ‘you have heard it said…. but I now say to you…’ phrases - he makes the law more burdensome, not less so. Whereas the Pharisees saw the obligation to love neighbour in terms of loving those within the community of Israel (mediating the wrath of God to the nations through their hatred), Christ stresses the obligation to love even those who oppose us. Why? Because we are to be holy like our heavenly Father, bestowing gratuitous love on those who oppose us, just as he lavishes grace upon the world that rebels against him.
In the light of our sinfulness, this all sounds rather hopeless and discouraging. How can we mere mortals ever hope to reach such divine levels of holiness? Our hope is secure, however, because those levels of human holiness have been reached in Christ’s perfect life of self-donation, which He now offers to us. It is this very holiness of Christ that is offered to us through the Sacraments, that has been stamped onto our souls by the Holy Baptism through which we have been engrafted into Christ, and which is revived in us through the Sacrament of Penance. These Sacraments lead towards the Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith, in which we receive Christ Himself, the living presence of the living God, whose communion prevents our piety devolving into the type of legalism of which we are quick to accuse the Pharisees.
Today’s feast is very important despite its name perhaps suggesting it is merely about furniture. The item named refers to the chair upon which bishops sat to exercise their authority. All bishops, as successors of the apostles have chairs or thrones as symbols of their apostolic authority. Peter had a specific authority among the apostles. As such, today’s feast celebrates the specific role and grace which St Peter was called to exercise as the leader of the Church, a role continued in large part by those who lead the same see he had responsibility for at the end of his life, i.e. the popes as bishops of Rome.
Today’s gospel, in a few succinct lines, brings out many key features of that ministry. Let me begin with ‘binding and loosing on earth and in heaven’ (v 19). Although the terms could refer to binding demons and loosing people from their demonic grip, Jewish usage of that era most commonly used the terms of the teaching and also juridical roles of rabbis and teachers as interpreters of the Law. With respect to teaching, the words mean what was ‘forbidden’ or ‘permitted’, this being the more common sense; in the sphere of judging, it meant to ‘put in fetters’ or to ‘acquit’. The latter was seen in terms of dealing with sinners, and the power to forgive and also excommunicate, a power given to all the apostles in Mt 18:18. It was the rabbinic conviction that God and the heavenly court recognised the decisions and judgements of rabbinic courts. Hence what is bound or loosed on earth is bound or loosed in heaven. In the gospel context, it speaks of the graced nature of this apostolic ministry, and of the close links between heavenly and earthly realms, which have been united in Christ.
One thing that is striking about this power is that it is contrasted with the attempts of the scribes and Pharisees to exercise a similar ministry as in Mt 23:13. There Jesus chastises them as hypocrites who shut up the Kingdom of Heaven, not going in themselves and also preventing others going in. What then is the difference here with Peter? Peter has been given supernatural revelation to grasp something of the true identity of Jesus (Mt 16:16-17). This supernatural faith is the reason Jesus picks for giving Peter a pivotal role in the Church, though other graces are linked to it, filling out the Petrine ministry. He is able to interpret the Scriptures and Law based on a clear grasp of who Jesus is, and of what Jesus himself taught and how he interpreted the Scriptures. The truth of Jesus and the grace given to keep people in his truth is the difference between Apostolic and rabbinic ministry. Peter also has to encourage people to live by this truth.
Though the apostles share in such a role (see also Mt 19:28; 28:16-20) Peter has a special role within this ministry of teaching but also governance. Upon him will the Church be built. He is given the keys, which in line with Isaiah 22:22ff means he is the prime, or first, minister under the King.
Let us give thanks for the grace given to Peter, for the role he played in the Church, and for the role played by his successors, the Popes. Let us ask for God to make clear who is he is calling to be the next Pope and let us resolve to live our Christian faith in union of mind and heart with the see, or chair, of St Peter.
The English Dominican Victor White OP used to maintain that people generally find prayer difficult when they pray for the wrong things. By this he meant that we often spend our time praying for what we think we ought to want, rather than those things that we actually want. It can be difficult to concentrate on a prayer for world peace, for example, if what we really want is a red Ferrari. For White, then, distractions in prayer are simply our real wants and concerns breaking in on ‘bogus’ desires for worthy matters: when we are praying for what we really want we won’t be distracted. Herbert McCabe put it rather deftly like this: ‘the prayers of people on sinking ships are rarely troubled by distractions; they know exactly what they want’.
In today’s Gospel Jesus assures us that just as we know how to give our children what is good when they come to us with requests, so God will give good things to those who ask. Part of this process is a transformation of our desire so that we come to want what is truly good, what is truly best for us and for our neighbor. Prayer is not an attempt to gain God’s attention; it is a work of grace in us that expresses our share in the Trinitarian life of God. All true prayer is offered through our identification with Christ, through our sharing in his Sonship as adopted children of God. If we are praying in Christ then, no matter how trivial or distorted our desires might be, we will slowly be made like Christ and begin to love what he loved and want what he wanted.
The tone of today’s Gospel is decidedly sharp. We encounter Jesus amongst a growing crowd who, despite all the signs and miracles he has worked, demand yet another sign. It would seem that his hearers are deaf; indeed, it would seem that they are blind also. Luke, in his previous chapters, has already related to us the many wonders which Jesus has performed; episode after episode of healings, exorcisms and other good works. It would seem that no matter how much the people see of and hear of Christ, they remain unmoved. The implication is that they simply do not want to believe. Perhaps this is why Jesus describes them in such forceful terms; “This generation is an evil generation.” Jesus tells them that; “no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” Like Jonah before Him, Jesus is a radical sign of conversion and repentance. He is all they need, no further signs are necessary.
Jonah became a powerful sign of conversion for the Ninevites because they were willing to listen; they were of an open disposition, willing to believe and trust in God.He “saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way.” (Jonah 3:10) Likewise, the pagan Queen of the South, came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Jesus is greater than these and yet the implication is clear; if the people will not listen, the Day of Judgement will come, and condemnation with it. In short, there is no time to look for further signs and miracles; we have all the signs we need and we must now act with an open heart to receive God’s Word. Lent is our time to recognise Christ, the sign of our salvation, and to turn to Him with renewed vigour and openness. If we recognise Him for who he is, then He will grant us what we need to follow Him.
Continuing our series of evening talks and discussions to mark the Year of Faith, we are able to share with our more distant readers the most recent talks given by the brothers here at Blackfriars, Oxford. Those who are able are most welcome to join us next Tuesday at 8pm to hear Fr Richard Ounsworth address the question of whether Jesus is really God.
On Tuesday 13th February, Fr Richard Conrad OP considered whether science has 'disproved' the existence of God.
On Tuesday 19th February, Fr John O'Connor OP asked whether God is cruel:
Today’s gospel brings intimacy into our Lenten season’s prayerful aspect. Prayer is one of the three main actions Catholics are encouraged to perform during Lent, together with fasting and almsgiving. In Lent, we are inclined to multiplying prayers. That is not a bad thing but it might take away the whole meaning of prayer: our relationship with God. That is why Jesus taught his disciples how to pray appropriately.
Most of our liturgies are made of pre-written, and most of times, pre-memorized prayers. That does not mean that they do not express our deep and genuine desire to get closer to God. However, one can easily ‘babble’ them without meaning what is in their core. The Lord’s Prayer is not pre-written prayers. It is more than that. The Our Father is a prayer that teaches us how to pray. It gives all the aspects of prayer (praise, thanksgiving, request…) and, more than that, it is a very intimate prayer.
Indeed, the beginning of the Our Father itself shows how much intimacy should exist between God and the one who prays. It is a prayer done by someone who already feels close to God. Jesus used himself to call God ‘Abba’, which would mean ‘daddy’. God is not only Our Father, but He is in heaven. The fact that we say that God, our loving Father, is in heaven, means that we are confident that He will grant our prayer (Lk11:13).
Thus, today’s readings encourage us to improve our way of praying. Our prayers during the Lenten season do not only need to multiply but also to become more intimate and we are invited to develop a loving and trusting relationship with God. It is only in that way that we won’t ‘babble’ like pagans do. That is also why we are encouraged to go into our rooms, lock the door, and pray quietly and confidently to Our father.
Today’s gospel seems to be laden with Lenten messages: a preacher could feast on the themes of judgment, sin, penance, alms-giving, heaven and hell. Beyond what it actually says, however, there’s also a message in how the reading flows. Opening with a rather dramatic and somewhat terrifying image of the apocalypse, with Christ returning with the heavenly hosts to enact judgment by separating the good sheep from the nasty goats, it concludes by focusing on the all too mundane reality of human suffering: the homeless, the lonely, the poor, the criminal, the infirm. Lent is shaped by precisely such a ‘descending’ movement, seeking to bring the faith we so often allow to become comfortably abstract into contact with the concrete realities of our lives.
Some of our older brothers tell the story of a friar who, many years, ago gave up smoking for Lent. After a few days of Lenten misery, the brothers were begging him to take up smoking again, and threatening to have the Prior put him under obedience so to do! Our Lenten penances are not designed to inflict maximum misery in our lives, and certainly not the lives of others, but rather to unleash love: they are to promote harmony, fraternity and charity, not only in some distant future, but here and now, in the Kingdom of God on Earth, established by Christ. More accurately, our penances serve to help create a space where God Himself can unleash love, acting through our lives to unleash love in the lives of others. In lifting our hearts and minds to God, we bring God’s peace down to earth.
I recently read an article about the so-called ‘fasting diet’, in which people eat next to nothing for one or two days a week but are allowed to eat whatever they like the rest of the time. Opinions differ over how effective or healthy this really is, but what’s interesting is that it doesn’t require you to give up anything for any extended period of time. After a short fast, you can return to your favourite indulgence. By contrast, the Achilles heel of most diets (as with giving up smoking) is that persistent effort is required. Even a brief and minor lapse can bring us rapidly back to our previous habits, and the whole project gets abandoned.
My point here is not to discuss nutrition, but to reflect on how easy it is for us to give in to temptation. We are still near the beginning of Lent and our Lenten resolutions may already be groaning under the deep-seated desire to enjoy what we want, without restriction.
In today’s Gospel from St Luke, Jesus faces his own period of 40 days in the wilderness. Three times the devil tempts him with the prospect of something intrinsically good: food (if only Jesus would convert a stone to bread), power (if only Jesus would worship the devil) and a radical trust in God (if only Jesus would jump off the Temple parapet).
But to grasp at these good things in such a distorted way would entail disobedience to God. Creating bread in the desert would be a refusal to live according to God’s providence, of which the Psalmist sings: ‘The eyes of all creatures look to you, O Lord, and you give them their food in due season.’ (Ps. 144:15) Sometimes we feast, sometimes we must fast; but always we must live by the word of the Lord.
The second temptation, to grasp power, is similarly corrupting: no Faustian bargain could ever satisfy our deepest needs, because power is empty without love. Without a true relationship to our almighty and loving God, we are just deceiving ourselves and effectively cutting ourselves off from the very source of all good things.
And then the third temptation, which on the surface seems so pious, is again unholy; because deliberately to test God is an act of radical distrust and unbelief, a vain attempt to treat the Almighty as a scientific object rather than as our loving Creator. Real trust in God means doing his will, letting him lead us by the hand; and not imagining we can drag him around to do our will, as though he were some kind of superhuman pet.
The reason Jesus can refuse the devil is quite simple. St Luke tells us from the start of this episode that Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit .Through the Spirit, Jesus humbly accepts his human condition as a frail and contingent being, who in his humanity depends on the bounty of God, the God who creates and sustains all life. Jesus faced the same human temptations as us – and worse. That is why we can look to him as our saviour: the ‘one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet was without sin.’ (Heb. 4:15)
It would be a mistake to think that Jesus is merely a model human being, who somehow shows us that there is a human way of overcoming our temptations and weaknesses. On the contrary, our bondage to sin is too great for us to survive without divine help. So the point of this episode is Christological: it demonstrates that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who defeats the devil here in the wilderness, the place traditionally understood as the devil’s home turf.
This all happens at the start of Jesus’ ministry, right after his Baptism and before his public proclamation of the Kingdom of God. And it will lead to the end of his ministry, the final showdown with the forces of evil, on the Cross on Calvary. It is no coincidence that St Luke places the Jerusalem temptation as the third, climactic test, because Jerusalem is where Jesus will suffer, die and rise again.
The victory of Jesus in the wilderness is an early indication that he is the Only-Begotten Son of God. Unlike disobedient Adam, that first son of God who fell from grace, Jesus is the obedient and suffering Servant, whose faithfulness restores humanity to God’s friendship.
But we must accept that gift of faith, if we are to have a share in that sonship. We must make that faith our own, as we place all our trust in God. Our first reading today shows we have a precedent for this faith in the people of Israel: We called on the Lord, the God of our fathers. The Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, our toil and our oppression; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt... (Deut. 26:7-8) And St Paul, in our second reading, quotes the prophet Joel: everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Rom. 10:13; Joel 2:32)
This Lent, let us call on God again: it is prayer that will bring us back to God, prayer that will inspire our fasting, prayer that will get us to attend to those in great need. In faithful prayer we meet our faithful God, who strengthens us against all temptations. As St Paul says elsewhere: ‘God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can bear it.’ (1 Cor. 10:13) That ‘way out’ is Jesus Christ, who abides with us even in our darkest moments, because he has already faced the darkness for us – and returned triumphant.
The reading from Isaiah is the second, lesser well known, section of a famous chapter on the true nature of fasting, one that places real commitment to justice at its centre. Today’s section is consistent with this idea, but brings the focus more onto the Lord God. God cannot be sought apart from doing justice, but God must nevertheless be sought in his own right as the source and worker of justice. If we attend to justice, even to the extent of putting others before ourselves, God will attend to us. It could be summarised by the words of Jesus: ‘those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (commit themselves to justice) will be satisfied (Mt 5:6)’. It means attending to the sick (understood in various ways) as today’s Gospel makes clear.
All this inspires us to an active love of neighbour, by which we express love for the God we cannot see. But today’s text from Isaiah also speaks of keeping the Sabbath, of resting from activity, if it cites especially activity aimed at securing our own pleasure. Nonetheless, I think this reminder of holy rest is important, and is a vital counter-balance to the call to act justly. Such rest allowed the Jews to focus on God, to worship, but also to realise their dependence on God and what God alone can do for them: he is their redeemer, and source of grace and justice. Resting allows this conviction to be put into practice, to become rooted in life, - not that one gives up righteousness or justice to do this.
At the beginning of Lent we tend to focus, no doubt sincerely and with zeal, on what we will do, and indeed do for God: how we will practise more self-denial, prayer more, be more charitable. But we need to keep God at the centre. We do need to cooperate in our sanctification, and cooperate as generously as we can, but more fundamentally still we need to realise that God saves us – we do not save ourselves. We have to be open to God. What we do is a response to what God has done for us in Christ and still does for us. We are reliant on grace to kick-start, sustain and complete our actions for God. Lenten practices need to keep their focus on God, on his saving love shown us in the self-emptying of Jesus. Lent is about what God can do for us – if we let him.
Lent ought to make space for God, to give God time. We are called to rest from self-centredness, but also to rest from some of our merely human activity, and find our rest and repose in God’s love for us, God’s love for us as sick and sinful. In receiving this love, let us be so invigorated as to offer it to others in acts of merciful justice, demonstrating divine love.
Entering such rest involves true attentiveness to God and deep stillness before God. It is a challenge to all. It requires a close examination of our attitudes and mindset, and careful spiritual discernment, all of which is about growing in true self-knowledge before God, as St Catherine puts it. In the ideas of St John of the Cross, it is about being open, whilst aware of one’s inner poverty, to a passive night of the senses and soul in which God actively works on us, as well as an active night where we are more active in the purification of senses and soul. There is a time and place for us to rest, and let God do the rest. Let us pray that this Lent will provide such a rest, and be a real Lenten Sabbath.
Lent is an excellent time to step back and evaluate our priorities: is what we say we believe, or what we think we believe, manifested in how we choose to live? If we examine our concrete day to day decisions, for example how we spend our time, or who we spend this time with, or what we spend our money on and so on, do we find that our energies and resources are invested in what we value most? Do we devote ourselves, as far as possible, to what we think is most important? Or have we, for whatever reason, allowed distractions or trivialities or the impositions of others to take us away from what gives us joy and life? Have these distractions stopped us from living the life that we want to live? Have these trivialities stopped us from becoming the kind of person that we always wanted to be?
Human fulfilment, both as individuals and as societies, is found in Christ: it is found in a Gospel centred life. If human priorities such as money, power, pleasure, entertainment, comfort, safety and so on are in fact the governing principles at the centre of our lives then we work against both our fulfilment and the fulfilment of our neighbour. We put love of self ahead of love of neighbour, and so also ahead of love of God. This slide into worldliness can happen almost imperceptibly which is why it is such a good idea to take stock regularly: it is very easy to become a hypocrite.
In our first reading God calls Israel to account: the people have been keeping fasts and they have been saying their prayers, yet their outward devotion is not matched by a commitment to truth, love, and justice. Their deeds do not match their words. God urges the people to put their lives in order, to recommit to justice, to get their priorities straight, not just for the sake of the poor and oppressed, but for their own sake also:
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am (Isaiah 58:1-9).
So here we are, a day into Lent, and in Europe at least, our attention is already being distracted (you might say) by the feast of two of Europe’s patrons, Saints Cyril and Methodius. In one sense, of course, it’s true to talk about this feast as an interruption – to the Lenten cycle of readings, for example, to the purple vestments at Mass and, perhaps, in a relaxation of our fasting.
But in another sense our celebration of these great saints – of their missionary zeal which brought the Gospel to the Slavic peoples – can serve to put our Lenten observance in context and remind us what it’s all about.
For in the eagerness of these saints to share the good news of salvation with those who had not yet heard it, together with the joy and gladness with which it was received by the pagans in today’s reading from Acts (13:48) and, we may conclude from subsequent history, by the Slavs, we are reminded what a great gift has been given to us in our Baptism into faith in Christ.
Our Lenten abstinence, then, is apart from anything else a recognition and expression of the immeasurable greatness of Christ’s gift to us – a share in the life of the Holy Trinity – compared to any of those other good things, be it food and drink, material comfort or whatever else, that we enjoy. But of course the example of the Saints and their eager converts not only encourages us to express the greatness of God’s gifts to us, but also prompts us to recognise our failure on so many occasions to acknowledge this truth. Thus our Lenten undertakings become both a work of penance, expressing sorrow for our past failures, and also a means of refocusing our attention on our life in Christ – that life which he gives to us through his Death and Resurrection (for the celebration of which this season prepares us) and of which we see an abundance in the apostolic zeal of SS Cyril and Methodius.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of our Lenten journey with Christ, when we walk the road to Jerusalem; the road that leads to the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Saviour. It is a time for reflection and for action; a time for faith and works. We do not journey alone, and it is fitting that we begin together marked by the sign of sinfulness and of hope: the ashes. ‘Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return’. In these words of Genesis we are reminded of our mortality, a mortality we owe to sin; however, we are also reminded that from the ashes of death we will rise to a new life, a life everlasting. From darkness comes light; from death there is life; these ashes represent the seed ground from which we can be born anew.
We have before us forty days during which we can take stock of our lives; forty days such as Moses, Elijah and Our Lord Jesus spent in prayer and fasting to prepare themselves for a life’s work. We have a chance in this season to remind ourselves of our need to be honest before before God and one another, and to allow ourselves to be freely conformed to His divine will. Through prayer, fasting, and the giving of alms, we can dispose ourselves to receive the free gift of grace which can allow us to draw ever closer to God and share in His inner life. We can learn to be the friends of God that He wishes us to be. This process of conversion, beginning with prayer, and fortified by mortification should also allow us to see others through the eyes of faith. It will allow us to see the needs of others and dispose us correctly to works of charity and compassion.
For these reasons we should see Lent as a time of great opportunity and a cause for joy. The Church reminds us forcefully of what we should be doing all year round, but so often fail to do. For this reason we should approach Lent carefully. All too often, amidst the busy schedule of our lives, we can fail to grasp the essence of Lent. Pride can all to easily take the place of virtue as we congratulate ourselves on near super-human acts of self-denial such as giving up chocolate or good beer! Perhaps we may be tempted to display our acts of virtue to others and seek their approval and admiration. The words of Jesus in today’s Gospel should be heeded closely: Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them; When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting.
Therefore, we must choose carefully that which we shall take up - such as more regular prayer – and that which we will deny ourselves in order to dispose us to encounter God more closely. If we can heed the words of Christ we can help make this Lenten journey a time of real spiritual renewal; we can grow in faith, and hope, and charity, and we can help one another to be the Christians we are called to be.
