Lent Musings - 1
Dear Friends,
Today I am beginning a series of columns on Lent – on different ways of approaching this special season.
I am starting with what was the basis of my homily on Ash Wednesday.
As you know, Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel talks about three spiritual practices that have become core for Lent: fasting, prayer, and charitable giving.
As I see it, fasting is the pivotal practice. I don’t really like saying that, because I don’t like fasting – but I think it is pivotal because it leads to prayer and charity.
The Church calls us to fast – to limit the amount of food we eat – on just two days: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The Church also asks us to abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday and on all the Fridays of Lent.
That’s really not that difficult, although the Church also asks us to consider adopting some form of fasting or self-denial that is personal to ourselves – maybe like giving up chocolate or beer, things like that.
But if we just do the minimum that the Church asks of us, that is fine.
Our fasting has three purposes.
First, the experience of a little bit of physical hunger helps us to experience our spiritual hunger for God.
It is only God who can satisfy this deeper hunger within us.
In this way, our fasting can lead to some prayer: the Stations of the Cross, the Gospels, the rosary, whatever it is for us.
Second, our voluntary experience of a little bit of hunger helps to create a bond with those who are hungry without choosing it.
Our fasting can then give us some sensitivity to those who are really hungry.
It can lead us to some charitable giving and to doing something to assist someone.
And third, fasting from food often connects us with some behavior from which we need to fast.
For example, maybe we need to fast from talking negatively about others or always putting our own preferences first. This is what repentance is really all about.
More musings on Lent, next week, in the Inbox Inspirations of March 16.
Father Michael Schleupner
Dear Friends,
Last week’s Inbox Inspirations concluded with my saying that fasting from food often connects us with some behavior from which we need to fast.
In fact, isn’t this the real purpose of any fasting?
Ultimately, fasting during Lent needs to become transformative.
Fasting from food needs to lead us to fast from certain behaviors and embrace other behaviors.
And so:
“Fast from judging others; Feast on Christ dwelling in them.
Fast from emphasis on differences; Feast on the unity of all life.
Fast from apparent darkness; Feast on the reality of all light.
Fast from words that pollute; Feast on phrases that purify.
Fast from discontent; Feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger; Feast on patience.
Fast from worry; Feast on God’s providence.
Fast from complaining; Feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives; Feast on affirmatives.
Fast from unrelenting pressures; Feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from hostility; Feast on non-resistance.
Fast from bitterness; Feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern; Feast on compassion for others.
Fast from discouragement; Feast on hope.
Fast from facts that depress; Feast on verities that uplift.
Fast from lethargy; Feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from suspicion; Feast on truth.
Fast from thoughts that weaken; Feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from shadows of sorrow; Feast on the sunlight of serenity.
Fast from idle gossip; Feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm; Feast on prayer that sustains.”
More Lenten Musings next week, in the Inbox Inspirations of March 23!
Father Michael Schleupner
Quotation From A Lenten Prayer by William Arthur Ward
Lenten Musings - 3
Dear Friends,
In my Inbox Inspirations of March 9 and 16, I reflected on the value of the three traditional Lenten practices of fasting, prayer, and charitable giving.
Jesus specifically mentions these three practices in the gospel of Matthew, and this passage is read every year on Ash Wednesday.
I also looked at how fasting from food needs to lead us to fast from certain behaviors that are not consistent with the gospel and to embrace other ways that more expressive of the gospel and our faith.
For example, we might fast from always seeing the downside of things and instead try to see God’s presence and blessings in our lives.
I review what I have said in the past two weeks because today my Lenten Musings take a direction that may seem opposite of the above.
Sometimes, we might think that we have to give up something or maybe add something to our lives during Lent.
And sometimes it is a good idea to do this: maybe to give up something desserts or add prayer during Lent.
But sometimes we may already feel quite burdened with things in life or we may already be too busy.
In these situations, giving up something may just lead us to feel even more burdened and adding something may just lead us to feel more put upon.
So, in some instances, Lent may consist in just choosing the life we already have with all of its built-in crosses and demands.
It may be choosing the life we already have and trying to live it with a new spirit – maybe with more patience or with more listening or whatever.
In other words, Lent may mean that we simply pray to God to help us to do what must be done and about which we have no choice,
and that we pray to God to help us do what we have to do more fully in the spirit of Jesus.
Sometimes it may be that simple.
Father Michael Schleupner
Lenten Musings - 4
Dear Friends,
“Repent” – this is the word that begins the Season of Lent with the placement of ashes on our forehead.
“Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
What is repentance?
Often, we – or at least I – have been led to see this as focusing almost solely on myself, as doing a serious examination of conscience and seeking God’s forgiveness.
The emphasis has been on my faults, my dark sides, my sins.
I think many of us have been given, and maybe are still being given this understanding or approach to repentance.
By the way, I have looked through the ordinary prayers of the Mass – the prayers that we usually offer every time we celebrate Mass.
The word “sin” appears at least ten times.
So, there is a significant emphasis on sin and repentance built right into the celebration of the Mass.
I now believe that this understanding of repentance may be incomplete.
Why do I say this?
Because it places “me” so much at the center of it all.
This practice of repentance, with the strong emphasis on sin, can become deceptively self-focused.
It can lead me to think that my spiritual and personal growth depends completely on me.
It can lead me to think that I can do all I need to do to be forgiven and, in fact, that I have to do all of this myself.
It can lead me to forget the power of God.
And, there is one more pitfall to this approach to repentance with its heavy emphasis on my sin.
It may lead me to an inappropriate, even unhealthy guilt.
Sometimes, I should feel guilty for something I have done or failed to do.
However, guilt can become unhealthy when it injures my self-esteem and even evolves into shame.
Guilt means that I have done something bad.
Shame means that I am bad; here guilt has become unhealthy and unholy.
In next week’s Inbox Inspirations, I will propose a three-step process of repentance which, I believe, is a Scripturally and spiritually helpful approach.
Father Michael Schleupner
Dear Friends,
Last week’s Inbox focused on repentance.
I said that sometimes, repentance has been presented as focused almost exclusively on my faults, my dark sides, my sins.
I now believe that this understanding is incomplete.
Why?
Because it places “me” so much at the center of it all.
This understanding and practice of repentance can become deceptively self-centered – as if it all depends on me, as if I have to do it all myself.
I prefer to think that there is a three-step process involved in repentance.
First, we need to start with God and with opening ourselves to God.
We need first to look to the One in whose image we are made and whose way we are to follow.
Repentance is not just remorse.
Instead, it is conversion – the re-centering of our life upon God or Jesus.
So, we are to look first at God – at the love of God, the love of Christ.
This is why I often begin the Penitential Act at the beginning of Mass with words like: “Let us open our minds and hearts to the love of God.”
That needs to be the first step – God, not me – and yes, this will lead to an awareness of my sinfulness as the second step in the process.
Here, I recommend, we can do an examination of conscience.
We begin with the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and then turn to Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount where he brings the Commandments to fulfillment (especially Matthew 5:13-48).
Finally, we look to the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10) to see a description of the kind of person Jesus calls us to be.
All of the above is the second step in repentance – a look at ourselves.
And then the third step returns to the love and forgiveness of God.
We entrust ourselves to God’s complete love for us.
We may do this with an Act of Contrition, sometimes with the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or simply with the Penitential Rite at the beginning of Mass.
I believe that the above approach to repentance runs far less chance of becoming a self-centered and negative experience.
It is much more of a God-centered and positive experience.
Father Michael Schleupner
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