THIRSTING FOR GOD

The gospel for this Sunday is the story of Jesus and the woman at the well (Jn 4:5-42). One verse caught my attention and has kept me thinking for a couple of days. It’s a statement that Jesus makes to the Samaritan woman: 

“Whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst.“

As I reflected on this verse, I kept asking myself why I still wind up thirsting for more. Jesus promises me that I will never thirst, and yet it seems to me that He is never quite enough. 

It occurs to me that maybe this is the human condition, to always be thirsty for something more. There are plenty of places in the Old Testament that witness to this. Just this morning, for example, we sang at Lauds Psalm 63: 

“Oh God, you are my God — It is you I seek!

For you, my body yearns; for you, my soul thirsts,

In a land parched, lifeless, and without water.“ (vv1-2). 

A favorite psalm verse of mine is

“My soul is thirsting for the Lord,

When shall I see him face to face.”

So, there it is again: To be thirsting for the Lord is part of our human condition.

The season of lent is designed to make us experience this built-in

incompleteness. Especially the practice of fasting. During this season, when we are preparing to celebrate the great feast of the resurrection, we are constantly reminded that we are by nature incomplete, that there is, as St. Augustine puts it, this God-shaped hole in the center of our being that cannot be filled by anything except God.

So I’ve decided not be too discouraged when I find that I am still thirsty after drinking of Christ, the Fountain of life. This side of heaven, the best I can do as an imperfect human being is to keep working at drawing closer to Christ and imitating him in his obedient suffering. 

A VISION FOR LENT

FORTY DAYS IN THE DESERT

Although the gospel for the First Sunday of Lent this year is Matthew's version of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness I'd like to revisit a post from a dozen years ago which treat's Mark's version, which is only two verses long:

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. (Mk 1:12-13)

Compared to the much more detailed versions of Matthew and Luke, Mark’s account seems disappointingly short on details. But if we concentrate on what he does tell us, we find some wonderful food for meditation.

First we should look at what Mark is saying. He surely intends (as do Matthew and Luke in their much longer accounts) that we should make the connection between the People of God who spent forty years in the wilderness, and Jesus “the New Israel,” who spent forty days there fasting and being tested. And perhaps more likely the gospel writers want us to recall the fast of Moses (Deut. 9:18) in the wilderness of Sinai, and that of Elijah near mount Horeb (cf. I Kgs 19:8).

I would like, however, to look at two interesting details in the second and final sentence in Mark: “He was with the wild beasts” and “angels came and ministered to him.”

THE BEASTS AND THE ANGELS

In the Old Testament wild beasts are associated with evil powers:

Many bulls encircle me,
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion. …
For dogs are all around me;
a company of evildoers encircles me.
(Ps 22:12,13,16)

Psalm 91 has angels protecting the psalmist from wild beasts.
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the adder,
the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot. (Ps 91:11-13)

Finally, in the account of creation in Genesis the first humans coexisted peacefully with animals:
God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ (Gen. 1:28)

So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field. (Gen. 2:19-20)

This kind of peaceful coexistence is also part of the hope of the renewed creation in Isaiah

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 11:6-9, cp. 65:24-25).

THE VISION OF PEACE
We can see in Mark's account of Jesus in the desert, then, a hint or a hope of the new creation of harmony and peace that will one day be brought about by Him.

The season of Lent is a good time for me to work at my part of bringing the “Peaceable Kingdom” into existence in my world and in my heart. During this holy season I can strive consciously to treat a certain person with more patience or compassion, I can take a step toward reconciliation with someone from whom I’ve become distanced. The ideas for “Lenten resolutions” in this area are countless.

What about bringing about the “peaceable kingdom” inside my own heart? Well, the idea of fasting is to lessen the hold that “the tempter” has on me precisely by taming, with God’s help, the unruly passions in me that try to run my life. Sort of like calling on the angels to help me with the “beasts” that threaten me. This is not about body-hating; in fact it’s just the opposite. The goal of my Lenten fast is that the world of instincts and the world of the spirit can come together in harmony so that I can live in tranquility with myself and with others, and so help bring about “that peace which the world cannot give.”

So, what about you? What specific things will you do during these forty days in the wilderness to help bring about Jesus’s dream of a “peaceable kingdom” in your heart and in your world?

             "The Peaceable Kingdom" Edward Hicks (1780 - 1849)

LENT WITHOUT SANDALS

MOSES IN LENT

The first reading at mass today gave us the story of Moses and the burring bush. Here's a reflection from a few years ago.

The biblical accounts of Moses’ life tell us that it was divided into three periods of forty years (summarized in Acts 7:20-43); rabbinic literature was also fond of meditating on these three periods: forty years in Egypt, forty years in Midian, and forty years serving Israel. So Moses, often depicted as a figure of Christ, becomes a good subject of meditation during our forty days of Lent. I am indebted to Carlo Martini, S.J., (Through Moses to Jesus, Ave Maria Press, 1988, pp 334-34) for many of the following thoughts.

The middle period was spent in the wilderness tending the sheep of his father-in law Jethro. At the end of this period of forty years Moses has his famous vision of the burning bush.

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ (Ex. 3:1-5)

Moses goes to investigate the burning bush to try to understand it, to put into one or another category of phenomena that he is familiar with. But the voice tells him “Take off your sandals, this is holy ground. You’re not going to approach this mystery on your terms but on mine!”

When was the last time you tried walking barefoot over rocky ground? It’s always a tentative operation, because you never know what’s coming next. Ouch! Martini paraphrases it this way: “Take your sandals off, because you are not going to come to me by enclosing me in your own ideas. You are not the one to integrate me into your personal synthesis. Instead, I want to fit you into my plan.”

AN EARTHQUAKE IN MY POCKET

I once heard someone make this remark about a fellow Christian: “His problem is that he thinks he has God in his pocket.” Having God in your pocket is dangerous business, as the Pharisees found out. They’re a perfect example of it, in fact. The God that they worshiped obeyed all of their laws scrupulously, including their Sabbath regulations! Some Christians have God safely trapped between the covers of their bible, others have God imprisoned securely in the tabernacle. Dangerous stuff!

With God safely in my pocket I quickly run afoul of the initiatives of the Lord, who always wants to fit me into his plan for the world. Maybe this is part of what the old rabbi meant when he said

"God is not nice, God is not your uncle; God is and earthquake."

As I was reflecting on these ideas recently, the father of one of my students died of cancer. If I showed you the faces of our hundred-some sophomores, you could probably pick him out easily. He is numb, devastated, swimming hard to keep his head above the flood waters of grief. He certainly does not have God in his pocket! I pray that he’ll soon come to realized that he is being carried around safe in God’s loving pocket.

THIS IS HOLY GROUND?

Back to Moses. God tells him to remove his sandals “for this is holy ground.” Imagine Moses’ confusion when he heard those words! He’d been living out in this deserted area tending sheep for forty years, this untamed, trackless abode of jackals, a place of desolation and aridity where no one would want to settle down and live. This desert where he had felt so lonely and wretched and frustrated for four decades – is he to believe that this is holy ground? This is God’s presence? This is the place where God reveals himself?

But it has to be that way. Why? Simply because God seeks Moses where Moses is, even if it is a place of desolation, the midbar, a wildermess devoid of all resources. For Moses, precisely this is holy ground! Had God gone looking to encounter Moses in Pharaoh’s court or in Goshen, the encounter would never have happened. God met Moses where he was living and working, where he was feeling sorry for himself and wondering if his life had no more purpose than tending sheep. But because God appeared in the burning bush, Moses’ wilderness became holy ground, the place of encounter.

I’m going to concelebrate the funeral in the abbey church this afternoon for my student’s dad before the body is shipped back to Nigeria for burial. I want to be there for the family, especially for my student, and to pray for them that as they stand there in the wilderness of grief and loss, that they will somehow hear the voice that Moses heard in the wilderness reassuring them: “You are on holy ground!”
Maybe I'll take my shoes off, too.
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CONVERSION TRAIL

This post is the text of a sermon I gave to the students of Saint Benedict's Prep on Ash Wednesday. You should know that well over half of the students had hiked on the Appalachian trail in Sussex County.

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I wonder if you heard the opening words of our first reading from the prophet Joel: “Return to me with all your heart.” That’s a pretty good summary of what this Ash Wednesday service is about. We sometimes use the expression “Be converted back to the Lord.” The word conversion is from the Latin word that means to turn around.

I’d like to tell you a personal story about conversion. It started one afternoon when I was hiking by myself in Stokes State Forest along the dirt road that runs along the bottom of the high mountain ridge that many of you are familiar with because along its crest the AT runs north and south.

I came to the trail that branches off to the left and it led me straight up the side of the mountain. When I finally got to the top I found those familiar white blazes that mark the Appalachian Trail. I planned to follow them back to Culver’s Gap, where I had left my car.

But first I sat down in a little clearing to rest, eat my lunch and read my paperback book. Well, after a while I dozed off. When I woke up, still a little sleepy, I shouldered my knapsack and began following those familiar blazes along the AT.

But before long, things started to get strange. The lake that I expected to see on my left wasn’t there, but there was one on my right instead. I ignored the mysterious surprise and kept on hiking. A little later the valley that should have been on my right appeared on my left. But again I just kept hiking on anyway, knowing that soon I'd be starting the long trek up what we Gray Bees call Jason’s Mountain.  I walked and I walked, and still no mountain. After a while I began feeling uneasy. Something wasn’t right.

Just then, a group of Boy Scouts came hiking toward me with their scout leader. Since they were hiking toward me I asked the leader, “You guys must be coming from Culver’s Gap, right?”

With a puzzled expression he answered, “No, that’s where we’re heading.” 

When the man read the horrified expression on my face he and I both realized at the same time what had happened: I had been walking in the wrong direction the whole time! He asked me, very kindly and matter of factly, “Did you get turned around?” 

Of course that was exactly what had happened. I had still been half asleep when I

stepped onto the trail after lunch, and it was an overcast day, so I couldn’t use the sun to tell which direction I was heading. So I had started out following the blazes, but I was going in the wrong direction. And so for the past hour I had been walking south, away from Culver’s Gap! 

The Scout leader was very kind. Instead of making me feel like an idiot, he nodded knowingly and admitted that that had happened to him once or twice. So I thanked him, and turned around to start retracing my steps, this time in the right direction. 

That’s a story of my conversion. I had to turn around and begin walking in the right direction.  

All of us are on the same journey to the Kingdom of God’s Love. When we’re traveling in the right direction there’s something that feels right: when we’re being kind or generous, or honest or humble or helpful. The landscape looks right -- like it does to a hiker who knows that lake he sees on his left is exactly where it’s supposed to be. 

But unfortunately we sometimes get turned around on our journey to the Kingdom and start doing sch things as putting our individual wants ahead of what the community needs, or being unkind or judging others unfairly. 

Luckily for us, the Lord in his mercy sends us help to let us recognize we’re heading the wrong way. Like that group of scouts who just happened to be coming down the trail toward me. Maybe it’s a few words from a friend, or a line in a song, or a verse of scripture. 

The season of Lent and our Ash Wednesday celebration this afternoon are opportunities for the Lord to ask us, “Hey, did you get turned around?” and for us to answer, “Maybe I need to do an about face and head in the opposite direction!”

So, the ashes you will wear on our forehead today will tell people “I know that I’ve gotten turned around at times, and haven’t lived up to what God had in mind when he created me. But now I’m back heading in the right direction.”

Today we get together and celebrate as a community: because we need God and we need others, fellow sinners, to help us to turn around and convert, to help us to keep heading in the right direction toward the God of love. Remember that Jesus is always walking with us on our journey.  He stays with us and forgives us no matter how many times we start to get turned around. 

Let us ask the Lord to bless us and help us to walk these 40 days of Lent with Jesus as his faithful followers. Wearing ashes as a sign that we’re committed to keep walking the right direction.

LEARNING FROM CHILDREN

 “Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God likea child will not enter it." (Mk 10:16)

After preaching on this passage from today’s gospel at our community mass this morning, I came to my room and continued reading a book entitled “A time to die.” Written in French, it recounts stories of how monks in eight monasteries in France had faced death. It is, as you would expect, a little somber at times, but the overall thrust is that monks generally see death as simply a transition to the eternal life that they’ve been aiming at during their entire life in the monastery.

This quotation on one Abbot’s coat of arms summarizes his spirituality: “As newborn babes." Because its message is so close to today’s gospel passage, I would like to share an entire long paragraph with you (my translation). The abbot wanted to explain his choice of this bible verse to his brothers.

In a moving text, he describes his vision of the monastic ideal: to become a child. This implies a change, an effort, a true labor. This transformation, however, is the indispensable condition for entering into the family of God, into his sanctuary into the kingdom of heaven, to enter into this game, which is the monastic life. Now, what does spiritual childhood consist of? In one word, it is made of simplicity, of confidence, total abandonment into the hands of God. […] Thus the monastic life is a life made for children. The monastic life is a game, the grand game of love [“charité”]. In a game, you have to respect the rules, that’s just like in the monastic life. The monastic life is a game which is played with God and with those whom the Lord has chosen to bring to the monastery, those that we call our brothers. Truly monastic life is a conspiracy of love.”

The simple message that any Christian can take from blog post is this, to borrow afootnote from the New American Bible, “Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child: i.e., in total dependence upon and obedience to the gospel.”

"Total dependence upon and obedience to the gospel” would seem to be a good message for the beginning of Lent, challenging us to root out all those things that we depend on rather than depending totally on God.

Have a blessed Ash Wednesday and a holy Lent!

ARMCHAIR PILGRIMS

Lent 2024 begins on February 14, This post is meant to serve as a cordial invitation to join a group of us ¨armchair pilgrims" who each Lent read the assigned chapter of my book "Pilgrim Road" each day. The book is a series of reflections, one for each day of Lent, each set in a different locale in Europe or South America, that offer thoughts appropriate to the Lenten Journey. 

The metaphor of life as a journey seems to be part of most cultures, even very ancient ones. The Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures refer to important journeys that change peoples' lives. So, the framework of a forty-day journey to Easter appeals naturally to many religious people. The stories in "Pilgrim Road" are accounts of my experiences during a sabbatical year when I traveled as a solo pilgrim through Europe and South America. But This book held a big surprise for me.

After "Pilgrim Road" was published, it began to morph into something I hadn't intended when I wrote it:

it has become a literary vehicle that creates a bond among its readers, uniting them into a pilgrimage group, like those in the Middle Ages that made perilous journeys to Compostela, Jerusalem and other pilgrimage sites. There are evidently a lot of people who, like me, get the book off the shelf every Ash Wednesday and journey with it to Easter Sunday. 

So when someone tells me "I'm reading your book each day," I always tell the person "You have a lot of company! 

You're part of a big pilgrimage group that's been growing over the years. Welcome!" There's something about being part of a group of like-minded souls, especially if they are from all over the place. In a pilgrimage group, people would help one another along the road in lots of different ways, but I imagine that one of the most important ways must have been by simply encouraging one another by their presence.

In the last few years, I've heard about book study groups and even simply friends who get together regularly to discuss what they've been getting from "journeying" with the book. Those who can share their experiences with others certainly have the advantage over the rest of us who are reading it alone, with nobody to talk with about what we're reading. The difficulty of our particular pilgrim company is, obviously, that most of us never see one another, we don't even know who else may be on the road with us, or how many we are. But I draw encouragement every day from the thought that there are all these people that I know, as well as many, many more who I'll never meet, who are traveling with me and praying for me as I do for them.

I should say that I consider this book a gift from the Lord for which I can take only a tiny bit of credit. Each time I read a chapter I find something new in it, and I thank God for using me to put it into print.

I'm curious to know how many of the readers of this blog are part of the pilgrim company. If you're reading "Pilgrim Road" would you mind encouraging the rest of us by simply leaving a quick comment (and maybe where you are from) in the "Comments" box. (I won't put you on a mailing list or sell your email address, pilgrim's promise). I just think it could be interesting and fun for us. Nothing wrong with having a little fun during Lent, right?

A SAINT FOR LENT

Those of us who try to take Lent seriously can fall into the bad habit of concentrating on ourselves - our fasting, our extra prayer and holy reading, etc.  The church’s liturgy recognizes this and calls our attention to it in the first readings at mass on both Friday and Saturday after Ash Wednesday. In these readings, the Lord tells the Israelites that the kind of fasting he wants is, among other practices, giving to the poor, practicing justice for the oppressed, and acting honestly toward one’s neighbor.

As I was trying to figure out what these readings meant for me in my life, I came across this simple description of what a saint is: “A saint is someone who makes it easier to believe in God.”

So I have been using this definition to help me in my own Lenten observance. Who are the people in my life for whom I make it “easier to believe in God?" What about my brothers in the monastery for starters? What about the students I teach, or the other kids in the school? How can I make it easier for them to believe in God? What about the people in Saint Augustine parish on Sundays? Or my relatives? Or my close friends? How can I make it easier for each of them to believe in god?

One of my Lenten resolutions, then, is to examine my conscience every night by asking myself that question.

In both of the mass readings that I mentioned above the image of light comes up. During Lent, I want to be conscious of being “light” for all those people whom God has put in my life.

This year, then, besides a couple of little practices of self denial, I will be concentrating on being light for the people around me, and making it easier for them to believe in God.

Following the Benedictine practice, I received Abbot Augustine‘s blessing on my Lenten observances. I pray that the blessing will work! I pray that you, to will

Have a blessed lent!

MY FELLOW PILGRIMS

 As often happens to me during Lent, I've been meeting various friends and acquaintances -- and strangers  too -- via phone or email or letter who tell me that they're reading the assigned chapter of "Pilgrim Road" each day. The book is a series of reflections, each set in a different locale in Europe or South America, that offer thoughts appropriate to the Lenten Journey. 

The metaphor of life as a journey seems to be part of most cultures, even very ancient ones. The Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures refer to important journeys that change peoples' lives. So, the framework of a forty-day journey to Easter appeals naturally to many religious people. The stories in "Pilgrim Road" are accounts of my experiences during a sabbatical year when I traveled as a solo pilgrim through Europe and South America. But This book held a big surprise for me.

After "Pilgrim Road" was published, it began to morph into something I hadn't intended when I wrote it:

it has become a literary vehicle that creates a bond among its readers, uniting them into a pilgrimage group, like those in the Middle Ages that made perilous journeys to Compostela, Jerusalem and other pilgrimage sites. There are evidently a lot of people who, like me, get the book off the shelf every Ash Wednesday and journey with it to Easter Sunday. 

So when someone tells me "I'm reading your book each day," I always tell the person "You have a lot of company! 

You're part of a big pilgrimage group that's been growing over the years. Welcome!" There's something about being part of a group of like-minded souls, especially if they are from all over the place. In a pilgrimage group, people would help one another along the road in lots of different ways, but I imagine that one of the most important ways must have been by simply encouraging one another by their presence.

Lately I've heard about book study groups and even simply friends who get together regularly to discuss what they've been getting from "journeying" with the book. Those who can share their experiences with others certainly have the advantage over the rest of us who are reading it alone, with nobody to talk with about what we're reading. The difficulty of our particular pilgrim company is, obviously, that most of us never see one another, we don't even know who else may be on the road with us, or how many we are. But I draw encouragement every day from the thought that there are all these people that I know, as well as many, many more who I'll never meet, who are traveling with me and praying for me as I do for them.

I should say that I consider this book a gift from the Lord for which I can take only a tiny bit of credit. Each time I read a chapter I find something new in it, and I thank God for using me to put it into print.

I'm curious to know how many of the readers of this blog are part of the pilgrim company. If you're reading "Pilgrim Road" would you mind encouraging the rest of us by simply leaving a quick comment (and maybe where you are from) in the "Comments" box. (I won't put you on a mailing list or sell your email address, pilgrim's promise). I just think it could be interesting and fun for us. Nothing wrong with having a little fun during Lent, right?

COEXISTING WITH MY iPHONE

 

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research organization, as of 2019 96% of Americans owned a cellphone. The other day I was forced to leave the elite 4% and get an iPhone. We have switched credit card banks, and the new card pretty much demands that I have an iPhone that can receive text messages, take pictures of receipts, and who-knows-what-else. 

"So what? What's the big deal?" Well, I now have to figure out ways of keeping the ironically named "cell" phone from invading my monastic cell and my time. For example, only the credit card company has my new phone number, yet I've already received phone calls from Denver, Maryland and New Jersey and elsewhere. 

I admit that I liked having the phone when I went to get some routine bloodwork done yesterday. I had made an appointment online and filled in all my information ahead of time. So when I walked into the office I just walked up to a scanner and swiped my phone's screen (an image of a funny-looking box made up of black-and-white squares) and immediately saw all my information already displayed. A few minutes later my phone pinged and a text message invited me to step up to the window to begin my appointment. So, I'm learning to make an uneasy truce with the stranger in my room.

As 96% of you know, an iPhone can kidnap your attention and supply you with essential news bulletins about non-events that you don't care about, and can let you research topics that you would never even have thought about otherwise. Well, I figure that I have enough trouble fighting all the distractions that normally come my way without adding a tidal wave of full-color instantly available useless information. 

People have been able to contact me for years via landline telephone and email. So far I've never regretted the lack of "instant" news from anyone.  

Maybe a gPhone?

St. Benedict insists that God, who is present everywhere, is constantly trying to communicate with each of us. The monastic life is designed to help clear the channels of communication by reducing the noise generated by possessions, self-will, pleasure-seeking and so on, by encouraging an environment of silent listening, meditation on Scripture, and introspective prayer. So, where does my new iPhone fit into this environment? 

This Lent I'm going to concentrate on spending time with my God-Phone. I'll be listening more carefully for messages from the Lord as they arrive from all sides: a kind gesture from a brother monk, the news of a friend's death from Covid, a phrase from Scripture during morning meditation. Like all those "urgent" calls and texts on my iPhone, God's messages often come at inconvenient times, and can even be unwelcome (e.g. as I look at someone's facial expression and realize that I'm being selfish and unreasonable). 

So, as I continue to make peace with my iPhone (I'm thinking of learning how to make and answer phone calls with it this week), I'm committing myself to spending much more time with my gPhone.

Have a peaceful Lent!

ALLIGATOR ARMS

 

Over the past week I've been reflecting on an image from the world of American football: "alligator arms." When the ball is passed to a player he sometimes has to stretch himself out full length to reach it and make the catch. A catch like that is likely to make the "highlight reel" of great plays for that game or even for the season. But sometimes the man who is the intended target sees that an opponent is bearing down on him  just waiting for him to stretch out for the ball, leaving his body exposed to a punishing hit. 

So the fellow decides not to reach out too far for the ball, but plays it safe, keeping his elbows bent to protect himself. The commentators on the television will say "Smith had alligator arms on that play." Not exactly a compliment.

So, that's the picture I started reflecting on a week ago.  Last Sunday's gospel told the story of Jesus' healing a leper: stretching out his hand, Jesus touched the man. The Greek verb for "stretching out" is ekteinein, and is used for literally reaching out or stretching out one's hand, as we see here in the miracle story. When Jesus is praying in agony in the garden of Gethsemane, he "stretches himself out on the ground," praying to his Father. So intense is his prayer that in the next verse his sweat becomes like drops of blood. 

The word comes up in the 14th chapter of Acts, when Peter is in prison awaiting execution. Luke tells us that the Christian community came together to offer "earnest prayer" for Peter. But this is hardly a powerful enough translation. The writer uses the adverb ekteinos, based on our verb. They were literally stretching themselves out in prayer. No alligator arms here! I call this kind of prayer "stretching prayer," the kind that Jesus did in Gethsemane.  

Ask yourself how often do you pray with that kind of intensity? I can hear the Lord saying, "Albert had alligator arms during that prayer." Not exactly a compliment.

Stretching out in prayer is surely bound to catch God's attention, right? But there's another aspect to this kind of prayer. Like the football player who stretches himself out to catch the pass, when we stretch ourselves out in prayer, we're leaving ourselves exposed and vulnerable. God can answer our earnest prayer with a "No!", and we're disappointed in God and discouraged, because after all that intense effort, our prayer was not heard. If you pray with alligator arms, then you're not as open to being disappointed if the answer isn't what you had hoped.

Lent is a great time to draw closer to God, to develop a more intimate relationship. There's no place for alligator arms here, though, whether in our prayer, our works of charity, or our sacrifices, as we prepare for Christ to stretch out his arms on the cross and offer himself completely for you and me.

LENT WITH MOSES

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MOSES: THREE TIMES FORTY YEARS

The gospel reading assigned as one of the readings for the First Sunday of Lent is Matthew's account of the temptations of Christ in the desert. Jesus spends forty days in the wilderness being tested by Satan, the tempter. Usually people see the connection between this episode and the forty years the Israelites spent wandering in the wilderness being tested (and failing the tests each time). Jesus is thus the "New Israel" who doesn't give in to the temptations of the devil.

Among the hundreds of ways of looking at this passage, I want to suggest one that is easily overlooked. It has to do with Moses. When the deacon Stephen is about to be martyred, he gives a long speech to the Sanhedrin, summarizing the story of salvation history (Acts Chapter 7). In this speech he summarizes the life of Moses, organizing it into three periods of forty years each:

I  The first phase includes his childhood, when he "was educated [in] all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds." Then, “When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his kinsfolk, the Israelites (v.23). This ends badly when he kills an Egyptian and has to flee for his life.

II   Moses flees when he hears that Pharaoh is hunting for him, "and settled as an alien in the land of

Moses defends Jethro's daughters (Ex 2:16)

Midian, where he became the father of two sons." We pay scant attention to this lost period in his life (the story of the entire first and second phases of Moses' life is told in 25 verses in Exodus 2:1-25), and focus, naturally, on the third phase, where all the action is.
At the end of the second period,“[f]orty years later, an angel appeared to him in the desert near Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush.(v.30)

III  We all know about the final period of forty years when, as Stephen puts it in his speech, "This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the desert for forty years (v.36)."


THE FORGOTTEN FORTY  

I'd like to share with you a reflection by John Power, S.M.A. in History of Salvation:

It is important for us to understand that Moses did not drop suddenly down from heaven, a dynamic and imposing figure, confound the pharaoh by a series of sensational miracles, and march proudly out the desert road at the head of an admiring throng. It is important for us to see that Moses was a man like other men, and that a long preparation was necessary before he was fit to undertake the mission God had destined for him. This early section [the second one above] of the life of Moses is passed over in silence in most books, and this is a pity. We know Moses better, and we see the workings of God's providence better, when we see the workings of God's providence better, when we realize that even a man of the gigantic stature of Moses needs to come to grips with himself and with God. Knowledge of himself  -- of his quick temper, of his fear -- drove Moses out of Egypt into the desert [to start the second phase of his life]; knowledge of God and of his love for Israel brought Moses back into Egypt to be the leader and liberator of his people (p. 44).

LENT WITH MOSES

So, what does all this have to do with Lent? There seem to me to be in this second period some useful suggestions for how to profit from Lent.  Fr. Power tells us that in this second forty-year period in the life of Moses, he first has to "come to grips with himself and with God." He does this little by little by coming to a "[k]nowledge of himself  -- of his quick temper, of his fear." These, you may remember, are the traits that caused him such trouble, causing him to flee Egypt and begin the second forty-year phase of his life. So, a first suggestion is that maybe I could look at the forty days of Lent as a time for me to come to grips with myself, to gain a better knowledge of who I am, to ask the Gentle Physician Jesus to reveal to me some of weaknesses and shortcomings that I'm not aware of or that I studiously try to avoid. Lenten practices such as holy reading and times of quiet reflection allow the Spirit a chance to speak to the depths of my heart.

Fr. Power then says that at the end of this period of struggles, "knowledge of God and of his love for Israel" brings Moses back to Egypt ready to do what God is asking of him. I might try to experience Lent as a special opportunity to get to know God more intimately. Being silent, refusing to join all the noise that our culture creates around me, will allow me (or better, will allow God) to cultivate that intimate relationship with the Divine for which I was created. 

The practice of silence, extra prayer and holy reading, fasting of various kinds, none of these Lenten practices are ends in themselves. But I can think of them rather as means to help me to spend the forty days of Lent doing what Moses did in those forty years in Midian, learning about himself and drawing closer to God. 

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Earlier this week, in preparing a talk on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I reflected on one common way of thinking about the sacrament: our souls are washed clean of guilt and, in the eyes of God, our sins are annihilated. I thought of the option on the pull-down menu in my computer’s search engine: “Erase Search History.” With a left-click all the searches I’ve made disappear as if  they’d never happened.

Then I came across this rather provocative idea: “In the strict sense, our sins are not obliterated as if they had never happened. God does not erase our history.”

Christ reigning from the cross

Think of the main idea of the Paschal Mystery, the central mystery of our faith: By means of his passion, death and resurrection, Christ has redeemed us. He overcame death, so that it no longer holds power over us. The best-known symbol of our religion, the cross, signifies that Christ’s death has become the means of our salvation. The Paschal Mystery does not say that Christ’s resurrection erased his suffering on the cross, nor does it say that the appearances of the risen Lord obliterated his death.

Christ’s horrible suffering and death, rather than being obliterated, have been completely transformed, and, incredibly, have become the very means of our salvation. St. Paul writes “We know that all things work for good for those who love God (Rom 8:28)”  and St. Augustine adds, “even their sins.” Even our sins work for good! Through Christ’s suffering and death, our sins our transformed, and God uses them as steps toward our salvation. Just as the Almighty draws life from death, he somehow manages to draw good from our sins.

As we begin the season of Lent this Wednesday, then, we might keep in mind the vision of the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a personal encounter between me and the Redeeming Christ, the Crucified and Living One. Once I humbly own my sins, he takes them and, far from obliterating them, makes them his own and transforms them into the means of my salvation.

 

INVITATION TO A PILGRIMAGE

During this Lent, I hope that many of you will join me once again on a forty-day pilgrimage from Ash Wednesday to Easter using the book Pilgrim Road: A Benedictine Journey Through Lent.

HAVE BLESSED, GRACE-FILLED LENT!