Hear, O Israel
We are one week away from Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. It seems like every year I have a difficult start to the season of Lent. The best efforts at strengthening my spiritual life fall flat until I find the rhythm of the season. And even once I have established a pattern, it is a struggle to keep it up for a full forty days. There are so many distractions to prayer. There are so many moments of forgetfulness when I do not follow through on my plans of reaching out to others. There are so many days when it is fullness that I seek, rather than the emptiness that invites God to more readily enter my soul.
This year I am starting earlier in my preparations for Lent by spending time each day this week attempting to listen to God. Many times we seem to forget that much of our prayer ought to be about creating a space where God can be heard. St. Ambrose reminds us,
The law says: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God.” It said not: “Speak,” but “Hear.”
Lent is indeed about fasting, prayer and almsgiving, but if we really want to grow in our relationship with God and others, it makes sense to ask the Lord before we even begin this season to show us the ways that will be best for us to make progress. What are the unhealthy habits that He would like to see eliminated from our lives through fasting? Who and what is God calling us to pray for during this season? Who are those that God is planning to place in front of us that need our assistance and how will we prepare so that we can truly see them? These are my questions as I prepare for Lent. Making time to listen, even if it is just a few minutes a day, is my plan of action during this pre-lenten season.
It is also important to remember that there is nothing that we can do to earn God’s favor. Many times we Christians tend to focus too much the things we need to do in order to be saved. The reality is that it is only through God’s mercy that we enter into His Kingdom. I do not, however, believe that we are meant to simply be passive observers who only watch as God brings about our salvation. There is an essential part of the Christian life that calls us to participate with God in the saving action of Christ. My friend Molly puts it this way in her writing about the journey toward Easter,
I am anxious for the opportunity to bury myself with Christ – my weak self, my old self, and my resistant self so sickened with discontent. I am anxious to enter the sepulcher of my Savior, where all of us are equally dead; the strong and the weak both equally in need of a miracle to pull us out of this mess. During Holy Week, I will have no doubts that my fasting, my prayer, or my lack thereof, did not earn or deny me a chance to be resurrected. Because this silver lined burial can’t be bought or lost with appropriate behavior. Only those aware of their hopeless state, and who see no other way for deliverance outside the crucifixion will experience the triumphant relief in a stone rolled away from the tomb.
May we prepare well for the upcoming journey and be there for one another to give encouragement and support on our pilgrimage that leads to resurrection.
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