Lent can be guided by super-ego and/or guilt. We feel a need to repent and to reform, to undo the selfishness and waywardness that can characterize human history. And there is a place for such moral and spiritual reconstruction. And when that reconstruction is guided by grace, the gift of God’s self-communication, it is a consolation; that is, a blessed impulse towards life and love.
Lent can also be guided by two other realities. First, that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16). Second, that “I no longer call you servants...I have called you friends, for everything I have learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:5). In other words, Lent is also about the gift of divine love that shows forth in Jesus Christ and the gift of friendship that Christ offers his disciples and us on the eve of his Passion and Death. The reflections that our sisters and brothers offer us in this Lenten devotional come to us as reflections of God’s love for this entire Georgetown community but also as gifts of self-revelation, one of the signs of genuine friendship. We are blessed in this collection from “friends in the Lord,” to appeal to a treasured Ignatian phrase. We are grateful to those who have inspired, labored over, and produced this testimony of friendship. Prayer is shared but always lodged too in the sanctuary of our own hearts. Consequently, these prayers will be read from each of our own hearts too. We may discover, each in her or his Lenten journey, those places where we need love and friendship, forgiveness and reconciliation, to feel the touch of mercy and to give the touch of mercy. Our Lenten experience embraces all this community and reaches out beyond this community. For Lent challenges us to empty ourselves of whatever separates us from others, from whatever prompts us to characterize another as “the stranger,” from whatever fans our suspicions into fear. Lent calls us to remember that there is no Lent unless it is crowned by the friendship of the Resurrection. Rev. Howard Gray, S.J. Interim Vice President for Mission and Ministry
0 Comments
|
Georgetown University
|
Click to set custom HTML
It's all about Love!
Facebook Users: Other items of interest are also available on our Facebook Page.
https://www.facebook.com/StPaulsEpiscopalChurchCambria/
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/parish/st-pauls-episcopal-church-cambria-ca
https://www.facebook.com/StPaulsEpiscopalChurchCambria/
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/parish/st-pauls-episcopal-church-cambria-ca