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» In Light of Faith
 
Reflections on the 2nd Sunday of Lent, Cycle A, February 17, 2008
by Richard Linneberger
Moving to Hampton Roads some 26 years ago was one of the most exciting adventures I have ever done.
New and exciting prospects filled the future. There was a sense of freshness and new beginnings.
Yet as exciting as it was, moving 900 miles from St. Louis was scary. As exciting as the future appeared, it was still unknown. Leaving friends and family was difficult. What would the future hold?
Today’s first reading finds God speaking to Abram: “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.”
How exciting Abram and his family must have been thinking about prospects for the future. Or were they? I imagine they too shared uncomfortable and scary feelings and emotions.
What would this new land be like? Leave family and friends for the unknown?
The scripture we read makes it sound so easy for the ending sentence of our first reading simply states: “Abram went as the Lord directed him.”
In other words, Abram and his family said: “It’s time to move on.”
We are currently on our Lenten journey. A time when we look within ourselves to discover and uncover those areas in our life where we need to say: “It’s time to move on.”
Taking time to look at oneself in order to discover and uncover those areas needing to be changed is not easy. It may also be scary and very uncomfortable since it may mean changing one’s life, changing one’s behaviors, changing patterns or habits.
In many ways the Genesis reading has God speaking to us this Lent: “Go forth from the land of your comfortableness and current behaviors, patterns and habits to a land that I will show you.”
Frequently we may think of Lent as “giving up” something simply for the sake of “giving it up.”
We may consider giving up a particular food during Lent. Some may even think that “giving up” in itself pleases God.
A very ancient tradition of the Church, however, has going without food in order to enable a neighbor to eat. In the early 2nd century, St. Aristides told the Emperor Hadrian about the practice in the Christian community: “When someone is poor among them who has need of help, they fast for two or three days, and they have the custom of sending him the food which they had prepared for themselves.”
Rephrased, St. Aristides might ask us: “Who has need of help in your family, among your friends, your co-workers and what could you give that person this Lent?” Does your family need you to spend more time with them?
Do your friends need you?
Do you need to abstain from some food so that your life, your body, is healthier?
What can you “give up” that will help another?
What can you “give up” that will help you become a better person?
Answering any of these questions may be exciting and also scary and frightening. It may mean change.
Lent is “a time to move on.” Are you ready to change? Are you ready to “move on”?
Let us move together to Easter — to sharing in the new life, a new way of living — a life in the Risen Christ!
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How to accept rejection gracefully
by Mary Hood Hart
For much of January, I’ve been signing off correspondence with the words, “Blessings in the New Year.”
When we wish someone blessings, we are wishing them good health, prosperity, peace of mind, harmony in relationships.
In a column, “The Struggle to Bless,” Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, OMI, offers a deeper insight on blessing.
He says, “to bless someone, literally, means to speak well of him or her. More deeply that means to see someone’s energy and honor it as a source of joy and delight rather than an intrusion or a threat.”
The thrust of Rolheiser’s column is to challenge us to offer blessings to those who may not seem to want or appreciate them. He speaks particularly of the young.
“Young people,” he writes, “ may not overtly want the blessing of their elders, but they desperately need it. Later on, after they have matured, they will want that blessing but, paradoxically, then they will no longer need it to the same extent.
“We should not be put off by the surface of things, where youth, naturally, push elders away and give the impression we have nothing to offer them. They desperately need our blessing.”
Rolheiser’s words resonate with me because I have raised four teen-agers and have experienced the phases in their lives when they reject what I have to offer, whether it be advice, an invitation, a good book, a hug.
These are natural reactions at their stage of development; they are on their way to independence. Even so, natural or not, rejection hurts, and, when hurt, I’m tempted to either retreat or lash out.
If I can accept this rejection gracefully, while the rejection may sting, its pain is temporary. And, in the face of their rejection, I can, as Rolheiser suggests, offer them a blessing.
This can manifest itself in very ordinary ways. For example, yesterday, my 16-year-old and I were shopping for dresses she needed for a family wedding.
I don’t enjoy shopping, and I am always eager to complete it as quickly as possible.
Anna and I began searching the clothes racks. Trying to save time while she searched, I would pull out a dress I thought might be acceptable. More often than not, when I raised a dress and said, “This is cute,” she looked at me and the dress as if I were dangling a dead rat.
Ultimately, she found two dresses (on sale!) for the rehearsal dinner and wedding. She came up with ideas to accessorize them, and, when she tried everything on, she looked great.
“Anna,” I said as we drove home. “You have excellent fashion sense.” She smiled.
As one whose favorite designer is L.L. Bean, it is a minor miracle I was able to appreciate and acknowledge my daughter’s fashion sense.
I blessed her. It didn’t have to turn out that way. I know too well what could have happened.
I could have found the way she turned up her nose at my taste to be hurtful and rude. I could have been annoyed that she wasn’t easier to please. I could’ve been irritated to be shopping at all. Yet on our shopping trip God gave me the grace to see Anna’s energy “as a source of joy and delight.”
As Rolheiser writes, “To bless a young person is to look at him or her, and without exploitation of any kind, give back to him or her an appreciative gaze that says his or her life and actions are a source of delight and joy for us rather than a threat and irritation.”
For us parents in the throes of raising teens who may overtly reject us and our efforts, blessing them can be a challenge.
But, in doing so, Rolheiser says, “we act like God.’
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The practice of living mindfully
by Barbara Hughes
Every now and then a column generates enough interest and questions that it warrants devoting another column to the topic.
The column “Living Mindfully” that appeared in the January 14 issue was one of them. Many of you e-mailed asking for more information about the practice and asked for books that might be helpful. And so I decided to develop the subject a bit more.
I first became acquainted with the term from reading the book “Purifying the Heart,” that a Carmelite friend, Fr. Kevin Culligan co-authored with Mary Jo Meadows, a Secular Carmelite, and Carmelite Father Daniel Chowning.
The practice draws from the Theravaden Buddhist meditation practice that trains and purifies the mind to lead it to enlightenment. Christian insight meditation utilizes the technique, but rather than seeking enlightenment, the goal of the Christian journey is union with God.
While every person is substantially united with God, or we would cease to exist, the goal of the Christian spiritual life is to be brought into a conscious union of likeness with God.
The result of this union of likeness is that we love God, others and all of creation with God’s own love. To be sure, it’s a lofty goal but the Church’s calendar of saints offers proof that it is possible.
The writings of Sts. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, who are regarded as Doctors of Prayer, guide us to this union of likeness through prayer since interior prayer is a special charism of the Carmelites.
Not everyone may be inclined to venture into the writings of these two saints, but other more contemporary Carmelites offer a simpler version of the way to union.
Obviously union with God is a profound grace that can only be accomplished when hearts and minds have been sufficiently purified. But purification implies more than turning away from sin; it requires vigilance over the gates of our hearts.
It requires being in touch with those first impulses that can lead us either to sin or to sanctity.
Sadly, most well-meaning Christians are simply too distracted or preoccupied with the business of life to pay attention. They miss the grace that is present in every event and every moment of life, which is why conscious awareness or living mindfully is so important.
Living mindfully is about being present to God in the here and now, in the ordinary and the not so ordinary. But like any good habit, living mindfully takes practice and involves a lifetime to get it right - if in fact we actually do.
Still it’s a goal worth striving for because it brings us closer to realizing Jesus’ invitation to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.
So how does one begin? We begin with the prayer of listening.
Unless listening to God is part of your life, living mindfully is impossible. As we sit in the presence of God and try to focus on the indwelling God, we become aware of all that passes through our hearts and minds. We call these distractions but they are also blessings.
These so-called distractions put us in touch with all that stands in the way of a deeper relationship with God. And that’s a tremendous grace!
First of all, it makes us humble because we realize how much pride and greed and all the other vices impact our thoughts, words and actions. But rather than letting them weigh us down, we simply note them and let them go.
The practice of listening to God fills us with an inner stillness that carries us through even after our prayer time has ended. It heightens our awareness but in so subtle a manner that it often goes unnoticed until years have passed.
If you are looking for quick results, you’ve missed the point. The practice of listening to God is about placing yourself in God’s hands, letting go of agendas and expectations, trusting that God will give you exactly what you need to become a saint if you are faithful.
In the spiritual classic, “The Practice of the Presence of God,” Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection wrote about the sacrament of the present moment.
This lay Carmelite brother wrote, “This difficult task necessarily requires perseverance and conversation with God in all activities great and small; speaking humbly and talking lovingly with Him at all times, at every moment, without rule or system.”
His words counter the idea that it’s all about technique which can be a stumbling block. Union with God is about first falling in love with God. And you know how it is when people are in love.
They can’t stop thinking about or talking about the love of their life. When you find yourself doing that, you’ll know that you’re living mindfully.
Until then, begin by making time to simply sit in the presence of God. For it’s there that God will lead you to your heart where He will speak to you.
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Copyright © 2008 The Catholic Virginian Press. Articles from Catholic News Services, including Fr. Dietzen’s column, may not be reproduced due to copyright considerations.
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