Lenten Reflection

Thursday after Ash Wednesday, 14 February 2013

(Deuteronony 30:15-20; Luke 9:22-25)

In all the years I have helped organize Lenten Reflections, I don’t think I have ever offered a reflection on this first day of the series. Let me take advantage of the opening slot to dedicate Lenten Reflections this year to the man who first organized Lenten Reflections at Iona, back in the early 1970s: Jim Poisson was at that time the Director of Campus Ministry, a young Crozier priest filled with energy and enthusiasm. After he left Iona, he worked at the Brothers’ high school in Rhode Island; I saw him not long ago at the wake for our former president, Br. Jack Driscoll, and the energy and enthusiasm are still there. Sometimes he shares his ideas in letters to Commonweal magazine. I wish for Jim many more years of rich and productive life, and I thank him for inventing Lenten Reflections.

When I think about retirement, I often fantasize that it would be fun, at least once, to follow the sun into spring. Sometime in March, my wife Ellen and I would travel south until we reached the first signs of the new season, perhaps in Georgia, and then head north in stages, reaching our home in time to see the pear trees in full bloom and all of nature turning green again.

 Lent, which literally means spring, is about following the Son of God into a springtime of renewed commitment to him. The earliest followers of Christ were known as followers of the Way, but soon they became known as Christians, because the Way for these people was Jesus himself. Today’s Gospel reminds us that “Jesus is the reason for the season.” In a few brief words, the passage from Luke’s Gospel focuses our attention on the point of all the things we might do for Lent. All of them involve taking up our own cross every day and following Jesus on the road through suffering and death to eternal life.

The readings for Ash Wednesday focus on strategies for “keeping Lent,” as Jesus himself reflects in the Gospel on how to pray, fast, and give alms in worship of the Father. Today’s readings call us to move forward into the season, literally following Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, where he will die in order that we might live. If you look at today’s Gospel in the context of chapter 9 of Luke, you will see that Jesus offers these words just after Simon Peter has answered Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter says that Jesus is “the Messiah of God,” and Jesus warns the disciples to keep this identity quiet, because he knows that, when it becomes widely known he will face death for his supposed blasphemy. So Peter’s recognition leads Jesus to make the first of three predictions of his passion. Before the end of chapter 9, he will make the second  prediction and he will set out on the road to Jerusalem. In Luke’s Gospel, up to this point Jesus has ministered in Galilee and areas near it. The second half of Luke’s Gospel narrates Jesus’ slow journey south toward Jerusalem.

So, at the beginning of Lent, the Church asks us to consider the end of the journey in Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection. “And resurrection.”—every one of his predictions about his violent and painful death concludes with the promise of resurrection. The first reading today, from Deuteronomy, focuses on the best way to follow Christ. Choose life over death, says Moses to the Israelites as they prepare to cross the Jordan into the promised land. And how are they to choose life? “By loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.”

All the things we DO for Lent—giving up, taking on—are meant to help us focus on the daily task of the Christian, taking up the cross. We devote our energy to getting closer to the Lord through prayer, self-denial, and works of love for others. In other words, we imitate Christ and, in doing so, put our own selfish desires and obsessions in the trunk of the car so that Jesus and his priorities can travel with us up front as we drive into new life. The paradox of today’s Gospel is at the heart of our faith—dying to self, we live more closely to Jesus and ultimately save our lives for all eternity.

Today’s opening prayer, in the translation we used until last year, could easily be a prayer we say every morning, certainly on the mornings of Lent:

“Lord, may everything we do begin with your inspiration, continue with your help, and reach perfection under your guidance. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

                                                                                                            (John Mahon)