Lent's Best Weapon

 

The question asked by Lent is often read as, “What will you give up this year?”  St. Benedict focuses on this question when he directs us: “let each one deny himself some food, drink, sleep, needless talking and idle jesting” (RB 49:7).  Most of us have memories of caffeine free, sugar free, or snack free Lent, with accompanying withdrawal pains—not all of them physical!  Refusing our own stubborn self-will whatever its little heart desires, even craves, is a salutary exercise, open to expansion into other areas of life such as habits of judgement, criticism, and complaint.  And, of course, their often-hidden companion, gossip.

 However, I would like to suggest a different image for self-denial.  We do not have to look very far or very deep to discover the issue of “too-muchness” in our lives and in the world around us: too much food and drink, too much money, too much “stuff,” too much activity, too much of everything except time!  Lurking behind all this too-muchness is the specter of unchosen deprivation: too little food and drink in countless places at home and abroad, too little money for necessities, too little clothing, too little shelter, too little education, too little employment.  Lent does not forget these harsh realities:  one of the strong traditional practices of the season is alms-giving in all its forms. 

 However, for many of us “too-muchness” deafens us to the sufferings of those who have too little.  Lent sharpens our attention on what hinders generosity at its root: the tiny world of me and my personal too-muchness in all its forms.  For Benedictines, devoted to and defined by the Scriptures as we are, St. Paul points to a powerful tool for addressing correction imbalance in ourselves, before we try to take on the world’s problem and our own contribution to them.  After reminding us that the real battle in which the cosmos is immersed is not with flesh and blood but with the powers of evil that so often manipulate humanity to its mutual destruction.  The monastic tradition, since all the way back in its desert days, has always taken that battle very seriously.    And so must we.  St. Paul proposes a list of armor and weapons that is well worth pondering in this season (Ephesians 6:10-17, to which I would add vs.18), but among them is one that particularly strikes my attention: “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17).

 The Letter to the Hebrews adds: “the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb 4:12). Further, it penetrates “between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and [and is] able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart” (also v. 12),  Surely at one time or another, all of us, in the course of our lectio or praying of the Hours have had the experience of being cut to the heart by a word, a phrase, an image, a story from this bottomless well of life that is always at our fingertips.  As we travel through Lent, we can make ample use of this very powerful weapon, not of our own design but of God’s, to cut through the layers of our life, exposing various cherished bits of too-muchness, and, deeper, exposing what needs or desires drive us to accumulate them.  We may sometimes want to make use of those needs and desires as excuses—hark back to Adam and Eve in the garden, hiding in the bushes and defending their “little” dietary transgression by all sorts of finger-pointing (Gn 3)!  It can be very enlightening and empowering to uncover the deeper reasons for our too-muchness in our past, but translating reasons into excuses is just finding a better set of bushes to hide in.  The Sword will free us by cutting away all the bushes, if can find the courage to see ourselves naked, stripped of all our subterfuges, disguises and, yes, excuses.

 This Sword comes with no instruction manual.  There is only one real instruction we need in the process of our Lenten conversion from slavery in all its varied and sometimes subtle forms to the freedom of the Spirit.  It’s the one St. Benedict himself puts in our hands: “Listen!”  Not, of course, with the ears attached to the sides of our head, but with “the ears of the heart”.   While sharp objects are not generally recommended for dealing with wax-deafened ears, the Sword that is God’s Word cannot be bettered as a remedy against self-chosen deafness! 

Try it!  You might not like it—I often don’t! —but you will certainly come to hear more and more clearly St. Benedict’s encouraging words: “What, dear brothers and sisters, is more delightful than this voice of the Lord calling to us? See how the Lord in his love shows us the way of life…. Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road that leads to salvation. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love"  (RB Prologue 19-20.48-49).

Oh, and when you take up this sword in the form of your Bible or book of Hours, remember that it is “living and active” because the Word is not primarily a book.   The Word of God is a Person, the Person we are called to prefer above all else:  Jesus Christ (see John 1:1-14).  

©2022, Abbey of St. Walburga

 

Lent 2022

 

Lent is upon us.  Ash Wednesday is March 2.

Every year, Lent looks toward Easter, when we hope to celebrate what the prophet Micah promised “the sun of justice will arise with healing in its wings” (Mal 3:20). In RB 49, the chapter of the Rule dealing with Lent, St. Benedict describes that moment as one of “joy”.

This year, neither daybreak nor joy is much apparent as we continue to live under the dark clouds of pandemic and now war.  Of course, St. Benedict and his monks knew long-ago versions of both.  But then as now, Easter light—not a “thing” but the person of Christ, the “light of the world”—refused to succumb to the darkness of danger and fear (see John 12:12). As St. John assures us, that light has never yielded to the suffocating clouds of long nights like the ones we are living through (see ; John 1:3-5).

The stories which lie ahead of us in the Easter gospels suggest that when the risen Christ appeared to his disciples, whether the grieving Mary Magdalene in the garden near the tomb or the two disheartened disciples on the road to Emmaus, what he gave them was a new way to see and to hear in the wake of what seemed so disastrous a death.  As you likely remember, Mary Magdalene mistook him for a gardener (a very biblical mistake, as we will explore some other time) and was forced to see him differently.  The disciples, who are never named, were baffled by the conflicting news of his death and his startling appearance, alive, to various people.  As he walked with them, he set out again the meaning of the Scriptures till their hearts burned with new life—and fire gave light as well as warmth on their cold, dark journey (see John 20:11-18; Luke 24:13-32). .

In RB 49, St. Benedict offers us various traditional ways of refocusing our attention and centering it on the living Christ, in line with his admonitions to prefer nothing to that Christ, the epicenter of love.  Reading the Word with renewed fidelity will banish the darkness that leads us into a confusion of priorities caused by so many uncertainties about the future.  Compunction of heart—the traditional monastic description of a door opening onto the road to conversion—allows us to regret and walk away from all the forms of selfishness inspired by fear and loss such as those that still surround us.  Cutting down on some of the ways we comfort ourselves without reference to the love of God and neighbor frees us to see more clearly what really does matter when we look with Gospel-washed eyes. All of these simple tools ready us to see the reality of the presence of the risen Christ burning around us and within us, clouded but undimmed by the suffering that seems to prevail over all else at times like this.  Lent offers us an invitation and concrete ways to look again, see again, and strengthen one another in faith, hope and love, despite the terrible damage wrought by the despair caused by sickness, violence, power struggles, and utter disregard for any good but their perpetrators’.  By the light of Christ, we can look through and past all of these devastations to the real human love, generosity, service and self-forgetfulness that are also there but less dramatic to observe. 

At Easter, the candidates for baptism will be washed clean in the life-giving waters that flow, ultimately, from the pierced heart of the crucified Lord (John 19:34, with Ezekiel 47:1-12, Revelation 22:1-2)  , but even on the way, those waters wash over all of us, making blind eyes see, despair-constricted hearts expand, and lamed spirits too timid to walk the paths of God kick free and run the way of the gospel, as St. Benedict promises we will.  And, to put it at its simplest, the way of the gospel is always love, no matter how fierce the forces against it may seem.

One of St. Benedict’s key values is community, so let us join forces with one another to strengthen us on that gospel journey and to inspire us to invite others to come along toward the Easter sunrise on the horizon, beyond whatever obstacles attempt to block it! And let us raise our prayer together for all of those caught in the dark nights of disease and war, with all their consequences.

For Reflection:

These are not in the order to which the reflection cites them, nor are they the only references possible. As you read some or all of them, think and pray about how God might be calling you to translate them into the reality of your life during this Lenten season.

RB 49

John 1:3-5

John 12:12

John 19:34 (with Ezekiel 47:1-12, Revelation 22:1-2)

John 20:11-18

Luke 24:13-32

Matthew 22:34-40

Copyright 2022, Abbey of St.Walburga