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Daily Scripture

+ Ash Wednesday

Lent is not about losing weight but about loving more.

Readings: Joel 2:12-18 Psalm 51:3-6, 12-14, 17 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your heart, rend your hearts, not your garments. [Joel 2:1-2]

Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them. When you give alms, don’t blow a bugle before you. When you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray in secret. When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. [Matthew 6:1-2, 5-6]

I didn’t like Lent as a kid. The approach was too negative and down right gloomy. I don’t like the color purple either. The sermons were doom and gloom. It’s not that I didn’t think I had no need of penance and repentance. Even as a youngster, I realized that I was far from perfect—not quite “the feller mi mudder t’ought I wuz.” But even as a kid, I did better with positive affirmation.

Ash Wednesday is like New Years Day. People make lots of resolutions only to be broken by Saturday. Well, not quite but close.

The word Lent comes from the German word meaning “lengthen.” The liturgical season is allied with the season of the year. Yes, the days are getting longer and the frozen earth is getting soften. The birds are chirping earlier and the buds are getting ready to burst. The sun is getting warmer as it heads toward the equator.

So Lent is a time to till the soil of our souls. It’s a retreat that we might not choose on our own but a necessary retreat. In essence, it’s a drive or a campaign for holistic living, for healthy living.

Let begins not with resolutions but with an attitude adjustment. The three days between Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday in Lent are what I might call a respite from the routine in the midst of the routine, if you know what I mean. It’s a time to walk through the ‘field’ or the pasture and take a hard look at the soil to see if it’s ready for the seed. The seed is God’s Word and the soil is our soul.

You got it. It’s time for a little soul work with a hard look at what’s not working in our relationship with God, with our families and with our ‘neighbors.’

Turn the soil over (metanoia) and you’ll know what is necessary for a more fruitful way of life. Then the resolutions whatever they be—not too many—will work.

If Lent works well, then we will want to continue our Lenten ‘practices’ after Easter.

That’s what true conversion is all about.

Feast of Mary, Mother of God

Saturday December 31, 2011

She pondered these things in her heart.

The season comes and goes,
all too fast.
Insufficient time to ponder the event
that altered the calculation of time.
But wait,
Fox dared to quote the source
“It came to pass in the city of David…”
giving credence that the true meaning of the season
was not forgotten.
And did you the spontaneous concert:

Christmas “Flash Mob” at the South Bay Galleria in Redondo Beach?

If we don’t sing about it,
the very stones will cry out.
But they sang from their hearts,
upstairs and downstairs,
and then they applauded
one another and the one who made it all happen:

Luke tells us that Mary “pondered in her heart” all that was happening.
There are many ways to ponder__

To ponder is to “think about,
contemplate, reflect on, dwell on
or turn over in one’s mind.”
In his homily at the Abbey,
Father Giles put it this way:
“To ponder is to think good thoughts.”
I find that the most meaningful definition of all.

It is the ability to live in the present moment without distraction
accepting life as it comes and goes
giving thanks for the good things that are happening
and striving to embrace the difficulties and stressors
that challenge our peace of mind.

On this New Years Day, we honor Mary whose ‘Fiat:’
“Let it be done to me according to your word,”
might well be adopted as an ‘article of faith,’
an expression of our conviction that nothing can happen this year
that God and we can’t handle together.

We are not only at the start of another New Year
but also at the doorway to what is called “opportune time”
Jesus came once in Bethlehem,
but he comes constantly at opportune moments in our lives,
and more often than not, unexpectedly.

The Feast of Mary, Mother of God is a Catholic feast, to be sure,
but New Years Day is for everyone__
Christians, Jews, Moslems;
Republicans and Democrats;
presidents, premiers and primates;
Americans, Africans, Arabs and Asians;
for all who claim God as their own__
Eloim, Jehovah, Allah.

This day of new beginnings
is about the acknowledgement of God as Creator,
father and mother of all humanity,
our common God__
who desires to be in communion with all humanity.

If as Catholics we would appreciate fully,
the reason for the season,
we might spend more time pondering the mystery
And searching for ways not to divide or discriminate
but to bring people in.
Were we to trust more in God’s wisdom than in human enterprise,
we might find more effective ways to make room at the table for everyone.

A blessed and healthy New Year to all.