Dear Friends,
Well, we are moving on through Lent apace – I hope you found something we sent last week helpful for your Lenten path. I hope some of you enjoyed ‘Catch me in your Scurrying’!
This week there are a couple of reflections on Desert & Wilderness – both very much the context for Lent – I hope one or other may have meaning for you. We continue with the litany too, ‘fasting from worry’ – easier said than done!
I wonder if you are part of our zoomed Lent course on poverty – it began last Monday but continues for the next three Mondays at 7pm – lasting under an hour – never too late to join! The link is
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89606042539?pwd=MVRsK2dZYUxXcVpNTWZEYXV5MVE4UT09
The blessing this week is from Fire of Love, simply called ‘A Blessing’ – let us extend it too all those who have serious worries at this time.
Love to you all
Fast from worry; Feast on divine order.
Fast from complaining; Feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives; Feast on affirmatives.
Fast from unrelenting pressures; Feast on unceasing prayer.
The Desert
The desert is a place of stripping and a place of terror, a place of wonder and a place of promise, a place of testing and a place of paralysis of the soul. The desert may be a situation of helplessness and hopelessness, a state of mental anguish, deep-down loneliness or emotional emptiness. The desert, alternatively, can be a place where God whispers words of tenderness, a place where we meet with our Creator in a life-changing way.
Spirit of Integrity, you drive us out into the desert to search out your truth for us. Give us clarity to know what is right, and courage to reject what is expedient, that we may not fail to choose at all but follow the way of Jesus.
The Wilderness
What does it mean to be led into the wilderness?
To find yourself without bearings,
without direction,
without food drink, company?
For many the wilderness is to be without direction.
Not knowing how to find love, meaning, joy in life.
Losing faith, hope, friends, commitment.
This seems to be part of life.
In the wilderness Jesus was tempted
to lose direction and to change his plans.
Can you allow yourself to find refreshment,
faith, self-confidence
when you feel in the wilderness of aloneness
or of failure or confusion?
In your wilderness you will know God:
he comes looking for you then.
for he has come to find you.
It’s not that he will bring you to his home
but he will make his home in you.
More and more I begin to realise that when we are called to fast that what we are being invited to is not as much an experience of going without as an experience of going within.
The true fast is a self-emptying; a ridding from the body, mind and heart of all the excess. It is an uncluttering, a freeing of the pathway to our inner self – to that place where we can encounter God at the deepest of levels.
When we have embraced God’s presence in our very being we are ready to make the movement from within to without. It is a movement that leads to act and be in the world as Christ – to be God’s presence of love, mercy & compassion to all we encounter, knowing that God will be our guide, our strength, our sustenance.
Donal Harrington