We have been talking recently
about the great good of unity in the community. Lent adds another layer to this
unity; it calls for unity even as we shed our extra baggage and walk with the
Lord to Jerusalem—no coppers in our belts or extra tunics. Complacency has to
go, because the poor Christ has a baptism to be baptized with, and we are
called to join him. Coincidentally, the prophet Joel had to shake the people of
Jerusalem out of their complacency—in his case, the imminent arrival of a
famine in the land. It was no longer business as usual. It seems to me that the
Lord has chosen this Lent to summon us out of any complacency we may have,
faced as we are with so many challenges—Covid-19, political upheaval, death in
our midst—we need our communal unity to press on to Jerusalem.
Joel’s words are like a
trumpet blast for us: “…proclaim a fast, call an assembly; Gather the people,
notify the congregation; Assemble the elders, gather the children and the
infants at the breast; Let the bridegroom quit his room and the bride her
chamber…let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep, and say, “Spare, O
Lord, your people…” This call to the Church touches all the people of God from
the eldest to the youngest. It touches us in a similar way: the seniors among
us with their years of monastic experience; the newly arrived who are like
infants at the breast, imbibing the wisdom of our forefathers; even those
enjoying the embrace of the bridegroom—“His left hand is under my head, and his
right hand embraces me…”—are called to rouse themselves; and finally, the
priests of the community whose task is to call on the Lord’s mercy on behalf of
the community, as they minister the divine mysteries. We must all travel light,
for the journey to Jerusalem and to the Father is arduous.
The whole movement of
Lent is, in fact, toward the Father. The Lord wants us to choose the one thing
necessary, that is, the Father’s will, as he did, in “one spirit with him,”
focused on what really matters, devoting ourselves as a community “…to prayer
with tears, to reading, to compunction of heart and self-denial.” But even more,
he wants us to choose that good zeal St. Benedict spoke of: “being the first to
show respect for the other, supporting with the greatest patience one another’s
weaknesses of body or behavior…” not pursuing what we judge better for
ourselves, but instead what we judge better for another. Let us sprinkle this
zeal upon the other sacrifices we offer this Lent, that good zeal which creates
one heart, one mind, and one voice.
Lent is a communal activity. It is another layer of our unity as a community. For in our embrace of the Lord’s deprivations, we will find the one thing necessary—becoming one spirit with him and with one another on the journey to the Father. May the Holy Spirit bring this about.