Here we are at the beginning of another Lent. Once again we
hear the gospel’s call to the traditional ascetical practices of prayer,
fasting and almsgiving. Those of us who follow the Rule of Benedict are
familiar with his Lenten call: "We urge the entire community during
these days of Lent to keep its manner of life most pure and to wash away in
this holy season the negligences of other times…by devoting themselves to prayer
with tears, to reading, to compunction of heart and self-denial.”
It is all very
familiar, perhaps too familiar.
Ascetical practices have always been an integral element of Christian life. One of the best definitions of ascesis I have come across
is from the book we are presently reading in the refectory. “Ascesis is not a
morbid obsession with one’s guilt or sense of unworthiness but a celebration of
the experience of being loved unconditionally by God.” The author goes on to say, "Let us not mistake asceticism for spiritual athleticism. Athletic discipline
is undertaken to succeed and triumph. Asceticism is undertaken precisely so
that in failing, God might triumph in us.”
In am in no way am exalting mediocrity, much less
a deliberate, nonchalant attitude to moral failures and sinfulness. Rather,
I am inviting myself and you to hear the Lenten invitation that we all need to
hear again and again, no matter how familiar it may sound. To hear it as an
invitation to accept my life here and now as I find it - in all its brokenness
and beauty. And to realize that Christ’s embrace happens most poignantly in the
darkness of loneliness and weakness and within the midst of, what could be
called, a confident desperation - knowing that we can unfailingly depend on Christ
Jesus alone as our Hope and Mercy. May our Lenten journey be filled with this
grace-filled dependence.
Photograph by Brother Brian. Meditation by Abbot Damian with quotations from Vincent Pizzuto.
