Dear Friends,
The end of Lent is just about in sight but it does become more & more intense as we get closer to Holy Week. When reading the relevant parts of the Gospels I can feel that growing intensity.
One of the attachments takes us back to earlier in Lent as it focusses again on ‘desert’. Also, I like the reflection on sin making us sad rather than bad & the reference to the young man who was good but just couldn’t rise to the radical challenge Jesus offered him
The blessing this week is ‘May the Mind of Jesus’. It is from the ‘In Tune with Heaven’ CD. We will include each of you as we listen to it.
And for your information:
Journeying through the Triduum:
20-25 minute reflections – music word and visuals
Maundy Thursday (28th March): 5.30pm
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83740974343?pwd=OFBqTisramNpVEJ6dEhTV1UxV1J2dz09
Good Friday (29th March): 7pm
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81587370030?pwd=Vmc0QXUyZGs4Z3JtRU41TVZ4ZElnUT09
Holy Saturday (30th March): 10am
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82974784734?pwd=ZkFuc3c5YmVBemgwWmlrbkRGYmMvZz09
Love to you all
Fast from discouragement; Feast on hope.
Fast from facts that depress; Feast on truths that uplift.
Fast from lethargy; Feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from suspicion; Feast on truth.
LENT
Lent is a time to learn to travel
light, to clear the clutter
from our crowded lives, and
find a space, a desert.
Deserts are bleak: no creature
comforts, only a vast expense of
stillness, sharpening awareness of
ourselves and God.
Uncomfortable places, deserts.
Most of the time we’re tempted to
avoid them, finding good reasons to
live lives of ease; cushioned by
noise,
clutching at world’s success
to stave off fear.
But if we dare to trust the silence
to strip away our false security,
God can begin to grow his wholeness in us,
fill up our emptiness, destroy our fears,
give us a new vision, courage for the journey,
and make our desert blossom like a rose.
Create in me a Clean Heart, O God, and put a New and Right Spirit Within Me. Psalm 51:10
Joyce Rupp
Create in me a clean heart, open and receptive, so that I may embrace the many ways you choose to visit my life.
Create in me a clean heart, cleared of the refuse of old battles with others and deadly opposition with myself.
Create in me a clean heart, purified through the daily disruptions and the life encounters that take me beyond my grasping control and ego-centeredness.
Create in me a clean heart, freed from the clutter of cultural enticements, so that I can enjoy the beauty of life’s simple things and relish the gifts I so easily take for granted.
Create in me a clean heart, bathed from harsh thoughts, shame, and perfectionist tendencies, warmly welcoming with others with the embrace of nonjudgment.
Create in me a clean heart, brushed free of frantic busyness, so that I will have time to dwell with you in the listening space of solitude and silence.
Create in me a clean heart, rinsed of the residue of false messages about my identity, enabling my inner goodness and light to shine through all I am and do.
Create in me a clean heart, cleansed of anxiety and lack of trust, restoring in me an enduring faith in your abiding presence and unconditional love.
Create in me a clean heart, scrubbed of racism and prejudice, drawing me toward all as my sisters and brothers.
Create in me a clean heart, washed with your mercy and strengthened by your love, helping me to move beyond whatever keeps me from union with you.
Create a clean heart in me, God. Dust off the unmindful activity that constantly collects there. De-clutter my heart from harsh judgments and negativity. Wash away my resistance to working through difficult relationships. Rinse off my unloving so the beauty of my generous and kind heart can shine forth. Remove whatever keeps me from following in your compassionate footsteps. Amen.
Sin makes you Sad rather than Bad.
Lent is an invitation to turn away FROM sin and our assertion of human independence and self will, TO conversion. Conversion is a daily task since at each moment we have to make choices to follow God’s way or our own. Conversion implies a radical change inside ourselves which then alters the way we relate to God and to others. This involves a change of heart which affects our values, attitudes, choices, priorities. Happily for us conversion and renewal are not attributed primarily to our own efforts but to God’s grace and mercy. Grace is the unconditional love of God represented in Christ Jesus. It is through God’s gift of the Holy Spirit that we are converted again and again to his ways and renewed in the likeness of his son.
When the rich young man walked away from Jesus’ invitation to radical discipleship, the Gospel does not say that he walked away bad, only that he walked away sad. No doubt he remained good and sincere – but sad. If it is true then that sin makes us sad rather than bad, may our journey towards Easter make us glad.
Ronald Rolheiser