Reconciliation Lectionary: Joel 2:12-19

The classic opener on Ash Wednesday, the first Scripture that invites us deeply into Lent. Are we ready for it? We hear it every year. Has it become too familiar? I’m not sure it works well in a communal reconciliation, stirring as it is. My stance would be to honor it as Ash Wednesday’s first reading and leave it there.

But as a reminder and assist for individual reconciliation, it’s a bit long, but wholly fitting:

Yet even now—oracle of the LORD—
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, weeping, and mourning.
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God,
For he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love,
and relenting in punishment.
Perhaps he will again relent
and leave behind a blessing,
Grain offering and libation
for the LORD, your God.
Blow the horn in Zion!
Proclaim a fast,
call an assembly!
Gather the people,
sanctify the congregation;
Assemble the elderly;
gather the children,
even infants nursing at the breast;
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
and the bride her bridal tent.
Between the porch and the altar
let the priests weep,
let the ministers of the LORD weep and say:
“Spare your people, LORD!
do not let your heritage become a disgrace,
a byword among the nations!
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”
Then the LORD grew jealous for his land and took pity on his people. In response the LORD said to his people:
I am sending you
grain, new wine, and oil,
and you will be satisfied by them;
Never again will I make you
a disgrace among the nations.

I heard a good homily at church yesterday. Our associate pastor mentioned a hospital visit he once made on Ash Wednesday. A non-Catholic noted his container of ashes and asked him a few questions. The most pointed of them was this: what effect do those ashes have on the people who receive them?

In the context of this reading, perhaps we can ask the same of this momentous event described by the prophet Joel. The immediate effect is obvious: a large number of people performing a community event, a collective repentance. Like the season of Lent.

But outside of Lent, does our communal and personal history look more like the up-and-down relationship of the Israelites with God? A period of intense reform and renewal, followed by a long and gradual backsliding into wrongdoing? Does Lent offer us any promise of a gradually deeper union with God? Or are we reliving the same event time after time?

Naturally, that is all part of the human condition. We aren’t perfect. We cannot aspire to perfection, especially in this life. But when we come to Ash Wednesday, to Lent, and to this reading, will it inspire us in some new way? Will this reading make a difference in our lives? Even just for today?

Does the

Letter To Artists 6a: A Fruitful Alliance

John Paul II writes of “A fruitful alliance between the Gospel and art.” I want to take some extra time with this section. It’s one that should certainly give liturgical artists some fruit for reflection. 

Faith, like art, deals with that which is not entirely contained in the material world:

6. Every genuine artistic intuition goes beyond what the senses perceive and, reaching beneath reality’s surface, strives to interpret its hidden mystery. The intuition itself springs from the depths of the human soul, where the desire to give meaning to one’s own life is joined by the fleeting vision of beauty and of the mysterious unity of things.

I found this to be an important insight, and quite telling of the man who stands astride the world of faith and the world of art. These worlds both are glimpsed in the surface and appearance of reality. But human intuition, freed from materialism, hyper-rationalism, and other modern encumbrances, knows–literally knows–something lives past what we see.

In the same way, the experience of faith is something far beyond what even the artist might give us in insight:

All artists experience the unbridgeable gap which lies between the work of their hands, however successful it may be, and the dazzling perfection of the beauty glimpsed in the ardor of the creative moment: what they manage to express in their painting, their sculpting, their creating is no more than a glimmer of the splendor which flared for a moment before the eyes of their spirit.

What is important here, I think, is that artists aspire to capture something of the ineffable for the benefit of seekers, believers, and disciples. We try. We cannot perfectly bring this back into the world of experience. But we are inspired to try nonetheless.

Pope John Paul II’s Letter To Artists is available in its entirety online here.

EG 101: Prayer and Love Conquers Divisions

Let’s wrap up the discussion on Christian incivility:

101. Let us ask the Lord to help us understand the law of love. How good it is to have this law! How much good it does us to love one another, in spite of everything. Yes, in spite of everything! Saint Paul’s exhortation is directed to each of us: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). And again: “Let us not grow weary in doing what is right” (Gal 6:9). We all have our likes and dislikes, and perhaps at this very moment we are angry with someone. At least let us say to the Lord: “Lord, I am angry with this person, with that person. I pray to you for him and for her”. To pray for a person with whom I am irritated is a beautiful step forward in love, and an act of evangelization. Let us do it today! Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of the ideal of fraternal love!

Doing what is right, as the apostle counsels, is about making conscious choices and following up those choices with concrete actions. Love is not a feeling, I believe. It is a decision. We decide we are going to love someone, perhaps someone we do not like. If we cannot turn to the person in question, Pope Francis urges us to pray. Praying for an irritant is an act of evangelization. Ever think of it in that way? I hadn’t.

The Holy Father’s Evangelii Gaudium is available online in its entirety.

The Long Retreat Begins

The forty days are counted from this coming Sunday through sundown on Holy Thursday. I often tell people that this week’s four days are a prelude, a practice period, and preparation space to get accustomed to the Lord’s voice and where he is leading us this coming year.

Perhaps Lent has come up on your soul unawares. No problem. You have this coming week to get things ready. There’s nothing wrong with grabbing a few supplies, rushing out the door, and then dealing with details on the journey out. (Really: how many of us have found ourselves on Ash Wednesday and then thought, hmm … what can I give up?)

We always have our three pillars: fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. If we’re not sure what to do, there’s always skipping a meal. In the time saved, pray as you read the Bible (maybe one of today’s readings) and give the money away to a local charity.

After many years, I find a mix of one old practice and one new resolution works for me. On that first point, I’ve read many commentators criticize the automatic “giving up” of things for Lent: candy, soda, chocolate, alcohol, etc.. We can and should do better, they say. Give up something you’re willing to give up for the rest of your life (like smoking or sweets between meals, I suppose). Lent is not a diet time. It’s for the greater glory.

I have found that annually silencing the car radio and cd deck has been an “anti-soundtrack” for my Lent. Yes, it’s easy. And no, I’m not tempted by the pleasures of noise even for long road trips. But it is like settling into a bed my first night on retreat. Different from my bed at home, yet comfortingly familiar. That one familiar practice isn’t the point of my Lent. The point is to pack a familiar traveling bag and take the same route to a different place. If that spiritual geometry makes any sense.

For my other practice this season, I’ve been bouncing back and forth these past several weeks between praying a Bible book in sequence for my daily lectio, and going deeper with events in the life of the Lord in the deep weeks of the Ignatian online retreat. So I’ve determined to get out of bed when I wake up and pray from the book of Wisdom this season. And look to the Gospels during a break later in the day. Twice a day will be difficult. Sometimes personal pleasure will have to be set aside. Sometimes work will be postponed.

Happy journey, Christian companions. Anybody heading out into exciting lands this Lent?

Voting Day

No posts today in internet prime time. I was working the local election all day today. One bond issue. Interestingly enough, the building up for possible renovation is where we worshipped while in exile from last year’s fire. News just in a few minutes after I got home: defeat for the expanded conference center.

EG 100: Healing Historical Divisions

Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium touches on ecumenism here. Remember, this is directed at workers: bishops, priests, lay ministers, and others who exercise leadership in the Church. Ecumenism is the task of all the faithful, but let’s attend to what the Holy Father has in mind for his pastoral leadership:

100. Those wounded by historical divisions find it difficult to accept our invitation to forgiveness and reconciliation, since they think that we are ignoring their pain or are asking them to give up their memory and ideals. But if they see the witness of authentically fraternal and reconciled communities, they will find that witness luminous and attractive. It always pains me greatly to discover how some Christian communities, and even consecrated persons, can tolerate different forms of enmity, division, calumny, defamation, vendetta, jealousy and the desire to impose certain ideas at all costs, even to persecutions which appear as veritable witch hunts. Whom are we going to evangelize if this is the way we act?

The witness of Christ in our good lived example: that’s basic Christianity. For everyone.

Crown of Thorns Up

The Lenten crown of thorns got lofted up the west wall today. The view from the entrance and narthex:

It seems massive compared to most church decorations, but it almost gets lost in the vast spaces of empty walls in our nave.