My dear friends, Lent is not a “somber and dark period.” I think at times, even among Catholics and other Christians, that notion has drifted about. Lent is the most hope-filled time we have, culminating in the blaze of glory that is Easter….

I hope you will read the whole article – it’s not very long.  And, “go to confession!” 

So I will be signing off here until sometime after Divine Mercy Sunday.  I wish you all a blessed Holy Week and a very joyous Easter.

I will keep you in my prayers.

“Taking leave of prayer.  The uninterrupted communion with the Father begins to break off.  Everything recedes now into the light of estrangement.  Humanly it is inexplicable how this estrangement could be ordained by the Father, how the Father holds the spirit of the Son of Man in his hands even before he has received it back expressly at the moment of death…

Until now it seemed that each of his human words was immediately taken up by the Father and even received an answer before a petition was uttered.  Now he knows that it will be different:  he has to ask as never before, inescapably, even if no answer is given.  The word comes back sounding hollow.  Or at least filled with the full sound of sin that the Son increasingly hears, stirring up anguish in him.  All this is waiting outside the door, and the door will open.  There are many doors, but whichever he chooses, it leads into the Passion.” 

A Sadness in Your Soul

“This is, therefore, the real meaning of every real penitential commitment:  to withdraw from the current of exterior things, to silence the advancing hubbub of so many human voices, in order to return into oneself, into one’s deepest inner life; because it is in the silence of conscience that God waits for us.

When, in fact, Jesus says:  Go into your room and shut the door, he does not call to an isolation that is an end in itself.  That shutting the door corresponds to the one decisive opening of the human heart:  the opening to God.”

[Pope John Paul II:  Excerpted from a talk in Rome to students and their teachers, February 28, 1979, as reprinted in the Madonna House Newsletter of February 2008.] 

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Direct to YouTube for this video is here.

I found myself reading these words from the Missal over and over again earlier this evening at Ash Wednesday Mass.  They seemed to be calling to me, part invitation, part challenge.  Leave the past in ashes.  Leave the past in ashes.  Leave the past in ashes.

Is there something about being forgiven that I haven’t truly believed?  Or is there something from the past to which I am clinging, impeding me from moving forward?  Perhaps this will be a part of my Lenten journey this year.

May you all have a blessed Lent, as we travel together towards Easter, each of us with our unique invitation/challenge from the Lord.  

“The mystery of God’s presence, therefore, can be touched only by a deep awareness of his absence. It is in the center of our longing for the absent God that we discover his footprints, and realize that our desire to love God is born out of the love with which he has touched us. In the patient waiting for the loved one, we discover how much he has filled our lives already.”
(Henri J.M. Nouwen: Reaching Out. The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life)

“Every priest at death wants to be laid in Mary’s arms as was the Christ, Whose representative he is. As Mary said, after the Crucifixion, over her Son, Who was laid in her arms, “This is my Body”, so she will say at the death of every priest, “This is my body, my victim, my host. As I formed Jesus the Priest in my womb to be a Victim, so I helped Jesus, Sacerdos-Hostia, to grow in Thee.”

Is it any wonder, then, that she is the Woman in every priest’s life? No priest is his own. He belongs to the Mother of Jesus, once and always the Priest-Victim.”
(Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: The Priest Is Not His Own)

“Jesus, hope of suffering humanity, our refuge and our strength, whose light pierces the black clouds that hang over our stormy sea, enlighten our eyes so that we can direct ourselves toward you who are our harbor. Guide our bark with the rudder of the nails of your cross, lest we drown in the storm. With the arms of this cross rescue us from the turbulent waters and draw us to yourself, our only repose, Morning Star, Sun of Justice, for with our eyes obscured by tears, we can catch a glimpse of you there, on the shores of our heavenly homeland.”

(Saint Raphael Kalinowski: An Introduction to His Life and Spirituality, by Szczepan T. Praskiewicz, OCD)