Dear St. Rita Families,
As we prepare to embark upon our Lenten journey for this year, I want to remind you of why the seasons of preparation are so important. Lent and Advent are given to us specifically so that we can be ready to receive the gifts that God desires to give us through the mysteries of Christ’s Nativity and Pasch. These two mysteries are the central mysteries of the life of Christ – that God Himself truly became man, and that God in the flesh suffered, died, and rose. They reveal to us something about God and also ourselves, if we pay attention.
That God and man are compatible is the first revelation to highlight. God took to Himself a human nature and so became man and walked among us in order to unite us with Himself. So, while God is infinite, and I am not; while God is sinless, and I have not been; that does not negate the fact that mankind was made for union with God. This is a remarkable truth! Mankind, in the grand scheme of the universe, appears so insignificant! The observable universe is 94 billion light years across and 13.7 billion years old. It appears that homo sapiens have been around since only about 190,000 B.C. That God would create the vast and beautiful universe and then put us in it in order to be united with Him is extremely humbling and an astounding revelation of the depths of His Love for us! Of course, God being infinite and infinitely good, it stands to reason that He might do something extravagant like that!
God’s love as just indicated is the second revelation to highlight. He created us and the universe precisely as good and as a sign of His love. It is natural and simple enough to accept the idea of a lover not only giving gifts to the beloved, but also desiring union with the beloved. It is the third revelation that makes our hearts stop, not in its content, but in its intensity. The third revelation indicates the personal cost which God incurs in order to re-enable that union which we had lost by sin. That, of course, is His Passion and Death. It is not that God suffers for us – because of our callousness, we would hardly be moved if God only suffered a pinprick to redeem us (though this would have been sufficient). It is that God pours Himself out completely for us in love, suffering such an ignominious death that heads turn and then look away again in sadness, disgust, grief, and shame.
How does one prepare to celebrate that Mystery once again? (That is the definition of a Mystery in the Christian sense, by the way – a partial revelation of the infinite God.) We can never fully appreciate in this life what God has done for us, and yet we know in our minds that it is a gift beyond all reckoning. In the Season of Lent, then, we are invited to continue to carve out the interior path which I call the longest distance in that 94 billion-light-year-long universe – the path between the head and the heart.
The traditional means of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are worthy – placing ourselves in some sort of extremis such that we would be forced to rely on God and His Goodness. The Church does not mandate for us now all that much – the fast of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (1 regular meal and 2 small meals that together do not equal the regular meal; no snacks), and abstaining from meat on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays of Lent. Much is left to your own sense of what is appropriate for you in your state in life.
Therefore, I challenge you to be bold this Lent! Consider that God has poured Himself out unto death for you and will deny you nothing that is beneficial for your salvation. Thus, to empty your own self, to place your attachments at His feet, to free yourself that you might receive His gifts, seems to be the only appropriate response. And God who gave Resurrection to Jesus who suffered and died, will also take care of you, enabling you to find peace in Him who created you and redeemed you.
In Christ,
Fr. Christensen