Lent again, sigh

Remember the beginning of Lent last year? When we received ashes on our foreheads instead of having them sprinkled on the crown of our head like this year? Lent began, as it usually does, before the pandemic, and then it went on, and on, and on... as a friend said, The Longest Lent Ever!

In many ways, to me it feels like Lent never ended. In the past, I've spent my Lents fasting from certain things so as to appreciate their Creator more, and to remind myself to be more grateful for the many blessings in my life. But the pandemic means that the thing I value most, being close to family and friends, is replaced by staying away from them indefinitely. Even with the vaccine coming, it still feels like it's going to be a long wait.

So this year, I feel like a two-year-old ready to throw a tantrum. "What, You expect me to do another Forty Days, as if these 344 days of pandemic weren't enough? I don't wanna! Waaaaahhh!"

But then my sad little heart gets up off the floor and says, "Well, okay, Holy Spirit, I guess I can continue with your plan at this time. I can continue to fast from being with the people I love for the sake of the health and well-being of my community. I can spend a bit more time in prayer, fast from a few daily things that I know I've been taking for granted. I can creatively give the alms of my time, talent and treasure by reaching out to those who need the support I can offer from the abundance with which you have blessed me."

And I know that, in the giving of myself, my sad little heart focuses less on its losses and more on the joy it can bring to others. In not taking things for granted, I savour their goodness more. And in spending more time in prayer, my heart shifts from preoccupation with my petty concerns to a deep desire to rest in the heart of the Creator who sustains us all, and to follow the Holy Spirit's inspirations to do her and his will.

And in doing those things, my sad little heart becomes a joyful little heart set on serving others and making Lent worth living, even in pandemic times.

The original 40 days of Lent

I don't know about you, but I've never really given a lot of thought to the original Lent, the forty days when the holiest of holy men walked into a desert to spend time with God. It seems to be what was needed before Christ embraced his mission to teach us all about how love and the suffering that comes with it bring us to resurrection and deeper love.

In Jesus' day, going out to the desert was a practice mostly undertaken by the Essenes, a sect in Roman-occupied Palestine who embraced simplicity, prayer and fasting as a way of life. John the Baptist probably "trained" in that tradition, and it's clear that the average Jane and Joe of his time looked at the desert-dwellers as either really holy or really crazy people. You can tell from Jesus' comments about John (Matthew 11:18). Going into the desert wasn't something taken lightly -- a certain reputation came with it.

What exactly does one do in a desert for forty days? No one really knows what Jesus did with his forty-day "time away from it all retreat." I can't begin to imagine fasting or praying for that long, so I guess that's why this video with Matt Maher's song, 40 Days, caught my attention. Kudos to the video creators!

To be honest, I didn't really like it when I first saw it a few weeks ago, but after listening to the gospel reading this morning, I had to find it and watch it again and rehear the lyrics... and now something in me has changed.

The images, while simplistic, touch something fundamental about the meaning of Lent. It is a time apart from the ordinary, an opportunity for silence, solitude and simplicity. The image that stays with me the most is Christ on his belly in the dust, watching a flower grow, probably in deep conversation with the One who made the flower.

What will you do in the desert for these 40 days?

"Chasing Joy" and the wisdom of Edward Hays

These days I'm reading Edward Hays' delightful little book called Chasing Joy: Musings on Life in a Bittersweet World (Ave Maria Press 2007, ISBN 13: 978-0-939516-78-0). It's a marvelous thing to be reading as I continue to struggle with inexplicable dizziness issues, because it's about joyful living even when it's hard to feel joyful -- in a realistic sense, not just, "Everybody be happy!!!"

I've known and loved Edward Hays' writing since reading The Ethiopian Tattoo Shop when I was in High School. He's a Catholic priest, but not a boring one -- he's a great storyteller, and I suspect he's the kind of person who always has a twinkle in his eye. I just googled him to make sure, and wasn't disappointed. He looks like Santa's brother. He's written a stack of books, many of which I've perused, and several that I own because it's nice to inject some whimsy and humour into prayer now and then since God must have the greatest sense of humour of all. I mean, look at the walrus... or the emu... or the proboscis monkey. If they don't strike you funny, think of the last person who made you laugh...

I just wish the hierarchy of the Catholic church would stop taking themselves so darn seriously. In Advent, they took the Mass from solemn to downright depressing with "adjustments" to the translations of the Mass, all in the name of making it truer to the original ancient Latin. The problem is that no one speaks ancient Latin anymore, and now Mass feels pompous and frustrating. Up until recently, for as long as I've been alive, the church's prayers have always addressed God like S/he is a dear friend rather than as a solemn and distant being who demands our absolute, tongue-twisted adoration. And, as you know by now, I'm one for simplicity, not pomposity. Short and sweet is better than long, convoluted and boring!

I've already made public my opinion that the new translation of the prayers makes them inaccessible, exclusive, stilted and stuffy. In fact, the "new" prayers with their words like beseech, implore, devout oblation, blah blah blah O God Almighty Father (sorry, but God is more than male!!!), have tempted me to start a Facebook page called "People for a New New Translation" just to see how many others would join the club. Except I would prefer a catchier title than that. If you know of any such page, tell me, because I want to join it! Or if you can think of a zingier moniker...

Anyway, Edward Hays again brought to mind this recent pet peeve when I read the following in Chasing Joy, in a chapter called "clinging to the faith doggedly but without joy": 

"...clinging without joy to the faith can be a valid motto for the large numbers of faithful who today sadly lament the restoration of the clerical culture and the practices of the pre-Vatican Council Church [Maria's note: e.g. this new translation].... Don't bother to write letters to Rome. Complain directly to God!.... Pray with faith, and I'll wager you'll hear something like this: 

"Ah, you sound just like my son, Jesus! How he used to lament to me, moaning over the wretched worship of temple and its priesthood or the hypocrisy of the village elders with their strict observance of the petty religious rules..."" (p. 111-112)

According to Edward Hays, God encouraged Jesus (and encourages us) to be joy for the world, to make love the greatest commandment, to love those whom society finds the most unlovable, and to smile and laugh at those who would make a relationship with God into a frowning, pious, gloomy and guilt-ridden thing.

That's the challenge for me these days, to smile and laugh as I listen to these pompous new wordings of church prayers that have our older priests stumbling over the texts, poor guys. I don't mind change when it's for the better, but this is not. I find myself either rolling my eyes, or tuning out these new prayers most of the time because they have too much useless gibberish -- as though lengthier sentences using weird Latin sentence structures from the 1920s Roman Missal translation of Pope Benedict the XV are somehow more pleasing to God. With the prayers we used for the past 40-some years, I loved to listen for the gems among the direct and simple words. It's painful to hear pre-Vatican language when you've always loved post-Vatican prayer.

I'm not quite clinging to the faith doggedly and without joy, because having someone wise like Edward Hays putting his thoughts and feelings into encouraging words like this makes it just a little easier. If you're looking for a good read to challenge your heart and lift your spirits during the long season of Lent, I'd recommend  Chasing Joy. It's helping me to take heart and be of better cheer! (Though I may start that Facebook page yet!)

Lent

This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
   to break the chains of injustice,
   get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
   free the oppressed,
   cancel debts.
What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
   sharing your food with the hungry,
   inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
   putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
   being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
   and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
   Then I, the God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, I will answer.
   You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'  

-- Isaiah 58. 6-9 from The Message

Yesterday, my youngest child asked me what we were giving up for Lent this year. I almost laughed that they think I'm the one who sets the Lenten rules... but it made me realize that maybe I've been going about Lent all wrong if that's what they think. They were fishing about for whether "we are giving up chocolate this year." Well, personally, I am because I like to have some sort of special discipline leading up to Easter, but I think I need to sit down with my family and read the little passage above, and decide what this Lent business is really all about.

I don't think Lent is supposed to be about giving things up as much as it's about changing our hearts... and our thinking, turning our lives around. So tonight at supper, we'll discuss how we might go about reducing injustice, exploitation and oppression this Lent. And maybe we'll talk about a little reflection someone gave me on fasting and feasting several years ago:

Fast from judgement, Feast on compassion
Fast from greed, Feast on sharing
Fast from scarcity, Feast on abundance
Fast from fear, Feast on peace
Fast from lies, Feast on truth
Fast from gossip, Feast on praise
Fast from anxiety, Feast on patience
Fast from evil, Feast on kindness
Fast from apathy, Feast on engagement
Fast from discontent, Feast on gratitude
Fast from noise, Feast on silence
Fast from discouragement, Feast on hope
Fast from Hatred, Feast on love.

I suspect this, too, is what God wants.

And if you're looking for a little Lenten inspiration, there's always the Pray As You Go link on the sidebar....