Goodbye for now, friends. I\u2019m soon going on another lenten journey and plan to return in early April.
\nIt\u2019s common for people of diverse Christian traditions to \u201cgive up\u201d something for lent. You could say I\u2019m giving up social media, but this is more than a time of abstinence. For a Benedictine, lent is also a time of increase, of doing more, of embracing the spiritual life with more fervor and vigor. It can be an exciting, enriching time and I\u2019m looking forward to this journey with the joy of anticipation.<\/p>\n
Lent, for a Benedictine, isn\u2019t a different<\/em> kind of season, but rather a deeper<\/em> one. If a year’s journey is like a labyrinth, lent would be the part of the walk taking us closest to the center.<\/a> Lent provides time to purify our spiritual practices, to increase, to grow. It is a step up from what we normally do, not an altogether radical change in our regime. Goodbye for now, friends. I\u2019m soon going on another lenten journey and plan to return in early April. It\u2019s common for people of diverse Christian traditions to \u201cgive up\u201d something for lent. You could say I\u2019m giving up social media, but this is more than a time of abstinence. For a Benedictine, lent is also …<\/p>\n
\nOne Benedictine practice is Moderation in All Things<\/i>, and that applies to lenten fasting, prayer, and almsgiving \u2014 whatever we choose to do to honor lent should not be unduly harsh. In Joan Chittister\u2019s words, \u201cBenedict<\/a> wants us to do something beyond the normal requirements of our lives \u2018of our own will.\u2019 Not forced, not prescribed for us by someone else. Not required by the system\u2026Lent is the time to make new efforts to be what we say we want to be.\u201d
\nBenedictinism is not a way of life one can distill down to catchy phrases, slogans, or recipes for success. There are more than 20 practices. The Oblate director at the monastery where I am a Benedictine Oblate uses the imagery of threads<\/em>. Each Benedictine weaves of these threads (practices, values) a life as unique as a fingerprint, or a poem. There is no single, universal Benedictine prescription for doing lent.
\nI have some idea of what I\u2019ll be doing less of\u2014participating in social media conversations, eating and drinking to satisfy my own cravings, and taking on just too much busy-ness. I know what I want to do more of\u2014Lectio Divina<\/em><\/a>, private prayer, communal prayer at the monastery, listening in silence, and responding in poetry<\/a>. I don\u2019t know what will happen, and while there is the joy of anticipation, there is also the fear of being consciously present to the realities that those practices inevitably will bring up \u2014 pain, loss, grief, loneliness, and darkness. Those are the uncomfortable things I prefer to mask and ignore, which is not a healthy or helpful response to my experiences and feelings.
\nI\u2019ve felt drawn (called, you could say) to embrace this lenten season of purification and enlightenment<\/a>, and yes, of paschal dying, which Father Ronald Rolheiser in The Holy Longing <\/i><\/a>distinguishes from terminal death, \u201cwhich ends life and ends possibilities.\u201d Paschal death, he writes is a dying, \u201cwhile ending one kind of life, opens the person \u2026 to receive a deeper and richer form of life.\u201d
\nAnd so, I hope this lenten journey will open me to receive the gift of life in all its fullness.
\nI will be \u201coffline\u201d from February 14 through April 7, 2018\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(Ash Wednesday through Last Day of Passover).\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nIn preparation to welcome spring (Easter\/Passover\/New Life), do you feel drawn to withdraw from anything? embrace something? How will you respond to your desires and yearnings?<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"