LENT - ‘forty days’

13 March 2011-03-13 

LENT - First Sunday 

Community Sermon in Morning Chapter by Br Patrick

I think we all know the historical origins of the Season of Lent in the Church - Abraham setting out from the comfort of the Babylonian cities to find a land which God had promised, his wanderings leading to the nomadic life in the desert. After Moses killed an Egyptian  he fled to the Sinai desert where he worked as a shepherd for forty years. It was in that bleak region that he experienced his calling at the burning bush and also in the same desert that he went up to the holy mountain to receive the divine law.

This desert loomed large in the history of the Jewish people for it was in their forty year desert wanderings that they came to know God’s constant provision and gentle guidance.

We could also mention the prophet Elijah fleeing to the Sinai desert from Jezebel. So in the Old Testament stories the desert is a place of testing but it is also the place of God’s special care.

John the Baptist followed in the tradition of the prophets when he went to live in the Judean desert and Our Lord himself learned the importance of the desert experience when He went up after his baptism to spend forty days in the wilderness.

When it comes to our own experience of Lent, I wonder if we tend to think in a not very positive way, - Gosh, is it that time again? - Rather sombre liturgy, rather sparse food, Lenten reading in the evening when we would be inclined to do something else and my own experience in the workshop, if there is anything to go wrong it will do so in Lent, days when Murphy’s law seems to be at work. Yet I wonder if we felt that when Easter came that the time had been very fruitful, there had been a cleansing and purification taking place which had not been noticeable at the time.

Dwight Longenecker, who writes regularly in Catholic publications and newspapers, tells of his brother deciding one year to take Lent seriously. They had a summer house in the garden and he decided to live in it for the forty days of Lent. He took a camp bed, some books and a small desk and disappeared into the Garden. Everybody laughed at his eccentricity.

He came in for meals and a weekly bath and the snow started he allowed himself a small paraffin heater, but other than that he kept his promise and lived and slept outdoors. He speaks even now of that experience having changed his life. He embraced hardship but he also affirms what a wonderful time he had. The fresh beauties of the garden were new to him each morning as he woke up. He found new freedom in prayer and discovered liberating truths about himself and God.

Furthermore, when Easter came it was bursting with more joy and power than he ever thought possible.

The First Reading for the Mass of Ash Wednesday is taken from the Prophet Joel and I’ll quote from it as it seems to crystallize the attitude a monk should have during Lent, of his particular mission from God.

“Come back to me with all your heart, it is the Lord who speaks, ‘fasting, weeping, mourning.”

“Let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn, turn to the Lord again for he is all tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich is graciousness and ready to relent. Who knows if  will not turn again , will not relent, will not leave a blessing as He passes, oblation and libation for the Lord your God.”

Let us put our trust in God that He may make our paltry efforts bear fruit – all God asks of us is goodwill and He will do the rest.