NEW LIFE….NEW CREATION

NEW LIFE….NEW CREATION

We take a break from our usual meditation to get ourselves into the spirit of Lent. We will return to our theme next week. This morning let us reflect on the season of Lent and on what the season calls forth from us.

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD.

Be in your prayer space, follow the usual steps and settle into silence.

Take a couple of gentle, slow and deep breaths…becoming aware of your breath going in and out… stay focused on this breath of life……

Breathe in all that is of God and from God…all that is true, honest, pure, admirable, noble, decent, virtuous, worthy of praise, good, loving, kind – all that deserves respect..

Breathe out all that is not of God and from God……..

Settle into silence, into peacefulness, into profound silence, into pure joy. Keep listening in quietness, stillness and serenity.

Come to that place, that space within, that place of deep silence – Solitude…to just being here and now, without having to accomplish something.

Now I invite you to consecrate your time and all that come with this moment….in your own way, in humble, simple, may be even inadequate words………..

Now from the depth of your heart begin to wish your mind well………

Prayerfully, gently, slowly read…..take time…go slow!    

We begin our Lenten Journey with a cross traced in ashes on the foreheads of all who came to Church on Ash Wednesday as declaration of the necessity of repentance, of change of heart and of faithfulness to the Gospel values. The priest or the minister says, “Repent and believe in the Gospel” as he traces the cross in ashes on the forehead of the faithful who come to Church on Ash Wednesday. Lent begins with the call to repentance.

The opening message of Jesus was: “Reform your lives! The reign of God is at hand!” This is the good news…this is the Gospel….the presence of the reign of God, the ‘already’ and ‘not yet’ of Christian life. We do not know how or when all things will be transformed.

To repent is to turn around and toward. Jesus invites is to turn around and toward the kingdom of God. He calls us to realize that we are going in the wrong direction. We are citizens of the Kingdom of God and we need to turn toward the kingdom. On our earth the Kingdom of God is already present in mystery: it is and it is not yet. It is the beyond that is within! One who is transformed by the Gospel values will come to know the “beyond that is within”. This is our hope.

As deformed by sin, violence and war, the shape of this world will pass away. We are offered the hope that God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice and peace meet, embrace and abide……… and the blessedness that comes from this transformed world will surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart.

Our hope is not a passive waiting for things to happen. It calls forth continual conversion if we are to hasten our journey into the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love and peace. The ‘kingdom of heaven’ and ‘God’s reign’ reveal the dynamic relationship we have with God, which enables us to accomplish what God wills. This calls forth a change of heart…real repentance, a real turn around, not just a feeling “sorry” for our sins.

To be part of that reign means to enter into a process of continually experiencing conversion. John the Baptist and Jesus called for “repentance” and that is what conversion is…an ongoing, life-long conversion!

Abide in these thoughts for some time

A necessary and integral part of this continual conversion for the disciple of Jesus, in search of a more just and non-violent world, is the conversion from discouragement and the temptation to escape the suffering of the world to an enduring commitment based on hope. The temptation we often face is to give up the struggle totally, to stop reading the newspaper, to withdraw into a privatized spirituality.

This is not the spirituality of the Gospel of Jesus. The Beatitudes, which flow from the heart of the Gospel of Jesus, lead us to ‘creative insecurity’ or ‘dynamic insecurity’. If you are secure, you don’t need grace….you don’t need prayer…. you don’t need brothers and sisters… you don’t need the power of God. If the reign of God is to be ours, we must have hope…..we must keep going….we must change our attitudes and grown into the “beatitudes”…we must get on the road to conversion.

In the New Testament, Jesus announces the arrival of the Kingdom, the reign of God, in the world. It is a future near at hand…..a future present in the present!!! The believer lives in hope. The concept of hope is most fully developed by St Paul, especially in his letter to the Romans. We boast of our hope for the glory of God. (See chapter 5) In hope we were saved. But hope is not hope if its object is seen; how is it possible for one to hope for what he sees? Hoping for what we cannot see means awaiting it with patient endurance. Rejoice in hope, be patient under trial, persevere in prayer. (See Ch. 8 & 12)

Jesus’ resurrection is our most radical sign of hope. It means that the power of sin and death has been overcome (1 Corinthians 15) and that we share in the freedom of the resurrection. We share in it as individuals and as a people. The season of Lent calls us to make a journey from Ashes to fire…..to Easter….to the resurrection of Jesus. Our hope is in this resurrection, that of Jesus and our own.

Believing in the resurrection means making a commitment to live in hope despite the injustices that we are aware of, despite the acts of violence that we read about or, perhaps, have experienced.

We must open our minds and our hearts and our whole life to welcome the abundance of God’s goodness and Grace and be transformed by this gift in abundance. The resurrection of Jesus and the hope of our own resurrection calls us to conversion, to a transformation of our life in Christ.

Nothing prevents personal transformation more than closed mind or heart. Change can not take place if we cling to and clutch at what we think is unchangeable.

When our security is at stake, we may withdraw or fight instead of listening or thinking or praying and talking about the challenges before us. We tend to defend our positions and our feelings and search for others to help us defend them instead of letting them go, or receive new information or listen to different perspectives
that call us forth change in us and in others.

We must remain open and be filled with wonder and awe and surprise……to be unafraid to die and rise again……to give up the present securities and comforts and accept new challenges…to hear new things….to meet new people …to be a people of the resurrection.

Rejoice in small victories and concentrate on the good already being done rather than continually lament the absences. This disposition leads us to hope and enables us to work for further change with perseverance. Let us make our journey of Lent and let it takes to rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus.

My Prayer for you:

May your Lenten days of prayer, penance and almsgiving help you to be reborn in spirit, empower you to love without limits, teach you to pray constantly, help you seek the wisdom of God, enable you to live in compassion and help you celebrate the joy of Easter. May God bless you and your family and keep you safe in His Love.

Fr. Gus Tharappel,msfs