Advent Reflections – Penance

The Liturgical year, rightfully called the “Sanctoral cycle,” is an incarnational way of entering into the realities of our salvation.  As God has shown us in history, He does not want to just tell us of Himself; He wants us to experience the realities of His actions.  Our response to this invitation we receive in the liturgy strikes right at the heart of our relationship with God.  The Lord wants to mediate His presence to us through worship as a body of believers all united as the body of Christ and through this speak to us as both a body and as individuals.  Our response to the season of Advent is an opportunity to reflect upon and enter afresh into the awesome mystery of the Incarnation and of the incredible reality of God dwelling in our very midst.  Since Advent is a season of penance, I want to talk about the value of penance and speak of it in light of how God can work through penance to bless us with a Heavenly vision of reality.

Penance shows us this isn’t it.

This isn’t it.  It just isn’t.  A funny phenomenon tends to happen when we don’t practice small acts of penance.  We start to act as if seeking the things of this world are it.  Maybe I should even back up a little bit.  Penance itself might be a term that holds a lot of baggage for a lot of people, but rightly understood it is either denying ourselves of some sort of pleasure or taking up an act of love in order to serve some greater good.  Jesus has a word to say about the penance of fasting when He says, “And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:16-18 RSV).  Is it enough that your only reward comes from your Father in Heaven?  Unless acts of penance are in the spirit of love, whether in our denial of ourselves or in our taking up of acts of mercy, they are, as today’s Mass reading says, “like polluted rags” (Isaiah 64:6a).

Penance, then, should also lead us into a spirit of joy, since we are being ordered to what is True, Good, and Beautiful.  We are entering into objective reality, where what is good and true and beautiful is actually becoming a part of us.  Penance actually opens us up to receiving the indwelling Trinity in all of God’s fullness and grace!  What an awesome mystery it is that our very being, in being moved and transformed by Christ, actually receives the being of the Trinity.  As we act in truth, we receive truth into our being (soul).  As we experience the emptying of self, we receive divine joy.  It is in the experience of the divine Liturgy that our being should be moved into the mystery of the Incarnation and into the Paschal mystery.

Can you see how penance actually opens up our being to receive the truths of our salvation?  How can I receive the truth that my eternal home is in Heaven if I am indulging in this world as if there were no life in eternity?  How can I receive the truth that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit if I am dragging it through the dirt?  Friends, this Advent let us take up penance in a new light, allowing God to give to us more and more of Himself as we set our faces toward the awesome truth that Christ is dwelling in our very midst and came to us in the vulnerability of a baby in a manger amongst a world of chaos and violence and men wishing to take His life immediately from His birth.  Open yourself to receive the amazing reality of the indwelling Trinity as you joyfully affirm, “this world isn’t it.”

A Fall Evening

As I looked around the park, I noticed the golden evening sun peaking its chin just over the top of the horizon, taking one last peak at creation on this brisk night.  On my left, a knobby tree stretched its gnarled branches high into the sky – leafless, a sure sign of the season to come.  To my right two young boys are dodging each others’ sticks as they hurl them at each other.  One has his bike dumped sideways into the dirt while the other’s sits upright against a tree.  The leaves around are singing the song of autumn – reds, yellows, oranges, and even some green yet.  And the sky, for its part, stretches like a taut banner spanning the horizon as if it were breathing down the October air in all of its crisp clarity.  Down the block two boys are facing each other on the swings – chains twisted sideways – as if to say, “this is how life is lived on days like this.”

It’s Fall.  As I turned to the nearest evergreen and plucked out a few needles in my autumn musings, I felt as though this was a thin spot.  Eternity and timelessness had wafted its sweet aroma my way and in this moment I felt like I could really sit in the space.  It is here that the bold flashes of reality become clear and definite – as if you can feel the Father’s hand of providence firmly carving your way.

Where can you sit in the space?

Daily Bread

Remember daily that your salvation has not come through your relationship to an idea, or an emotional state, or a certain type of security.  It rather has come more like a proposal from a bridegroom to a bride.  And not so much from love and truth in the abstract but from the Person within whom there is all Love and Truth.  Don’t ask the cosmos to give you things like courage and understanding.  The cosmos will always leave us quite lonely and without the understanding and courage anyway.  Learn them from the Person who has perfected them all, as if He was walking with His hand on your shoulder.

Sitting in the Space

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”  - Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal’s famous quote rings true even today; most especially today, I should say.  My purpose in penning this blog post isn’t to launch a cultural critique, but rather to make a positive point about a life of prayer – a life in a relationship with Jesus.  In the subtle movements of the soul, there is an important “space” that occurs between finitude and the infinite.  It is the space that occurs between God’s action and our understanding.  The space is where both exterior and interior activity are at rest, even for a moment, and we actually become receptive.  To become receptive is to let go of the old, stunted self and open the heart up to be alive with a Life that is not our own – a life that is more vibrant, imaginative, and creative than our own.  The space is where we give God the room in our will to expand our soul with His love.

The space occurs between where my words end and God’s words begin.  Now, rightfully understood, all prayer is a response to God’s first invitation to love, Whose words are already working and active in our hearts.  Sitting in the space, though, is being willing to sit in a place that extends beyond my sphere of natural understanding.  Take, for example, the time in prayer when we offer ourselves to God and pour out our hearts to him.  The space comes, if even briefly, between where I offer myself to Him and trust in loving faith that He hears and will respond.  It is a very real thing that we must wait in the space for His voice and open up our hearts to be receptive to the grace He desires to give to us.  The space, far from a sort of nothingness, is a place of love and faith.  It is also not any real type of distance, because the indwelling of the Holy Spirit makes a literal dwelling of Another in me.  The space is room for the imagination to be receptive to truth and to be purified of its bentness toward the self or toward the world.  Since it is beyond our control how God will work in the space, it is a place that is naturally uncomfortable, at least at first.  The space is a cliff of sorts, but a cliff that comes with the guarantee of greater good and prized treasures, the most prized being God Himself with a love that satisfies our desires and heals our soul.

I am concerned that our culture is dead set on annihilating the space.

The space isn’t just a time of quiet in prayer.  It occurs when I have some silence on a walk, or when I pause to admire a part of creation, or when I take the time to notice.  The space allows us to ask big questions, to dream ideas, and to really “pray without ceasing.”  All healing prayer requires sitting in the space with another and letting God’s healing Presence come crashing into our brokenness (If you want more on this in relation to healing prayer, read Leanne Payne’s Healing Presence or Restoring the Christian Soul Through Healing Prayer).  We must not let the space be stolen by that which does not have a right to it.  Our current innovations are in many ways brilliant and useful, but they cannot be used to eliminate that precious place of quiet and receptivity.  For those who are deeply uncomfortable with what they find in the space, there are many distractions to keep them occupied.  Let us not be fooled by the fact that this is often ourselves.

As we grow with Jesus, the space actually becomes a joyful experience of love.  We see that the space is really a meeting point for us and God, where “deep is calling out to deep” and communion is as real as the noses on our faces.  Creativity, hope, and joy, even in the midst of difficulty, fill the heart.  But this comes with giving ourselves to God’s presence in the space and learning to wait and listen to what He would say to us.  The space is the holy ground where this takes place.

Absolute Receptivity

The absolute receptivity of the Christian to God’s grace is the only posture worth having.  It is in being receptive to the indwelling love of the Trinity that both the whole interior and exterior climate of life is changed.  Think about it!  God…indwelling…Another making a dwelling in me…the tent.  I have been purchased by adoption into His death and, as a free gift of the Father, been united to Him in life through the Holy Spirit.  Brothers and sisters, this is a profound gift.  Sometimes I am baffled at how I discount this great love so easily in exchange for another lesser thing.  But all of this has to do with prayer.  I am being profoundly moved lately in relation to prayer and receptivity.

True receptivity is the willingness of the creature to be in right relationship to the Creator.  Far from passivity, true receptivity is hallowing our whole person unto God.  He created us precisely as persons.  All of our capabilities –  imagination, will, memory, understanding, love, and movements of the deeper interior heart – to name a few, are part of our gift of self to the Lord.  Again, this is particularly in relation to prayer.  Prayer involves the whole person.  As we unite all of the parts of ourselves, we become MOST ourselves in God.  Most of the time, many these parts of us are disjointed or dis-integrated. But as they are brought into unison through God’s grace, we receive integration of the heart and mind, understanding and will.  Being receptive in prayer means understanding that I cannot make this happen.  What I can do is offer myself to Him in the great exchange of love.  Prayer is the response to a relationship already initiated by Him whose knowledge of me is far more deep than my own.  God doesn’t fall for prayer tactics.  All prayer tips are intended to simply get us to the place where we actually realize that it is in allowing Him to love us as He desires that we are made truly alive and filled with joy.  This may very well mean spending time in a simple gaze.  In silence.  In fact, I can promise you it will.

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” -John 12:32

“Yes”

Let us celebrate
Rejoice and sing
Loudest of Songs
Most ancient of Hymns

One more has seen
Has come to be
Has sung the song
With eyes set East

Cymbals and noise
Banners bright
Trimmed in the gold
Of freedom’s delight

And though all these things
They drive out the night
Deep in the corner
The lost self may hide

And speak with small voices
To make himself known
But not loud and clear
lest you clean your home

So with Cross’ hope
And love of the Light
His strength is enough
To take up the fight

To open both hands
And open both eyes
To love as He loves
And die as He died

With Saints cheering on
And angels in flight
To speak “Yes” anew
And set souls aright

What Is

How many times (a day) do we focus on what isn’t?

I ask this because God is showing me how much he is the One of what is.  It is so easy for us to focus on what isn’t….”I wish I felt more…” “I should be more…….” “If only I could do ‘this’ more……”  How many times God has had to revisit this with me, I don’t know, but I hope that it sticks more and more with each time.

God works with what is.  It is easy to project what should be as a picture concocted in our head of some ideal….but what if this ideal is much different than it would look like if we were walking with Jesus?  And God will often promptly brush our idea of what should be very much aside and visit what is.

What is is what we really have.  Why do we avoid it?  Well, I would suggest because it often hurts to face it head on.

Sorrow?  Grief?  Hurt?  Sadness?  Anger?  With these emotions, the enemy tends to make us feel shame for their existence in our hearts.  He likes to plant the thought, “You should be feeling…..”  But what really is is just what is there.  Let me point out to all of us that God is certainly big enough to hear us out through these things.  In fact, it is in pouring out these very things that we receive the grace to work through them rightly.

Unforgiveness?  The enemy will try to get you to justify holding onto it.  And he probably doesn’t have to try very hard because we want to hold onto things ourselves anyway.  Rationalize.  Find reasons why they should approach you first.  Find reasons why you shouldn’t have to say that you hurt.  The temptation will be to hold onto it and forget promptly that you’re holding onto it.  But it remains.  And you continue to drink the poison.  It hurts to forgive hurt.  But it is what really is.  And we can’t work with what isn’t, friend.

Joy?  Happiness?  Peace?  Serenity?  This is when it is most easy to remain in what is with the Lord.  But then the little thought creeps in from the back left corner of the room….”It won’t last too long….And maybe that wasn’t such a big deal….Maybe it wasn’t even really the Lord.”  Just let those ones go.  Maybe it won’t ever leave you.  Maybe you’re destined for the peace of the Kingdom.

Whatever it is, however beautiful or ugly, we will need to stop squirming around with what isn’t until we simply go with the Lord to what is.  There is a peace in being with Him in what is.  It’s very much the peace of going to a perfect listener who already understands your words.  Throw in perfect goodness and you’re getting even closer.  And even though change can be a scary prospect…even that fear is a part of what is.  We can bring that too.

The Side of the Father

I was sitting in the chapel in the midst of prayer looking up at Jesus on the cross when this clear thought came into my mind: “Lord, all the good You did and all You received for it was the cross.”

And then He gave me a very clear response back that I feel called to share:  ”Those who only see the cross do not understand the heart of the Father.  They do not understand because they cannot see the joy with which I did my Father’s will.  It was for the sake of His will that I submitted myself to judgment.  And I never left His side.  Do you know the joy of being in the Father’s heart?  It will give you the strength to endure any trial.  Know the love that is present for those who dwell with Me at the Father’s side.  Do not only see the cross but the joy with which I brought you, O little ones, to the Father’s side.  And this joy is yours.  Remain in me and see the fullness of redemption through the cross.  See the fullness of redemption through the cross.”

And I realize that this is me.  It is me who so often only sees the cross.  I do not see the fullness and the joy of being at the Father’s side!

I got the sense that Jesus here is emphasizing His relationship to the Father so as to draw us into that same love and to show us the depth of the love between the Father and Son.  It is our relationship with the Father that brings us into loving obedience and faithfulness.  And this is a relationship born out of joy.