When does Easter begin?

My pastor Father Charlie Lachowitzer says Easter begins really with Laetare Sunday when both Sunday and daily Mass readings take a turn from repentance toward renewal. This turn actually is part of our lives all year around.

Continuing to read Hans Urs von Balthasar's The Christian State of Life this weekend I ran across this supporting quote, which moves along similar lines:

Thus the Christian's life and state do not simply run parallel to the earthly existence of Christ as though he had to live until his earthly death imitation of the state in which Jesus lived until the crucifxion. Christian life is not a mere imitation of the Lord's hidden and public life. On the contrary, it is from the beginning and at every moment a participation not only in the Cross, but also in the Resurrection of the Lord.

Not that the disciplines and practices of Lent aren't useful. They are. In the ground of Lenten practice we plant the seeds which spring up in hope. Yet, I want to think more about Father said. I want to have emblazoned on my own heart both the Cross and the Resurrection.

And there is no better way to do that than to observe Holy Week, from tomorrow morning through Easter Vigil. If you aren't there yet, try to be a part of at least one of these dramatic services. They are more than theater or re-enactment. They are performance and participation art at its highest level.

Things matter: What's in YOUR cell?

Continuing through the topics covered in Meg Funk's fine book, Thoughts Matter, I have been thinking about "things." It's one of eight areas of thought life discussed by the Desert Fathers, specifically listed in Cassian's Conferences.

I was surprised to find in Meg Funk's book an emphasis on the importance of letting go of "things" in the vowed monastic life. I had assumed, wrongly, that because vowed religious give up ownership of things as part of their vowed existence, that ownership simply wasn't important anymore.

Foolish me.

Giving up something outwardly is only the first step, according to Cassian. The real battle, and the real value, is found in giving up the inner attachment. Here's is Meg Funk's take:

"We cannot put an end to our desire for things by having a large or small sum of money. We can only do that by virtue of renunciation and [Cassian] urges us to root out the desire to acquire as well as the wish to retain. No number of things can satisfy the grasping, greedy impulse of avarice."

How true. Visually this came to me as a question: what's in your cell?

I have my fellow blogger Antony H. to thank for a recent reminder of the cell's importance. The picture above, Cell of the 6th hermit St. Cyriac at Sousakim, south-west of Jerusalem fairly close to the shore of the Dead Sea, comes courtesy of Antony also.

The cell is defined as the place where the monastic meets God, where he or she wrestles with day to day living, hidden away from the world's observation.

I looked into my cell. What did I find there?

A variety of "things" and concern about "things." Looking at these concerns and cares was very healthy. It granted me a new freedom to get outside myself, outside my daily practice, outside my work and my "mission and ministry" to see aspects of my life which usually go tooling on their merry way unexamined.

A tres healthy process to go through for the spirit.

But a greater surprise to me was that in my cell there were also people.... and when it comes to discernment, those people are also "things." I'm not talking about "using" people or the evil of "objectifying" others as foils for our own desires, fears etc. That's sin.

Instead, I observe that people by their very nature, like physical things, have a spiritual force field, a gravitational attraction, if you will. This "pull" of people in my life makes them as much in need of a good discerning examination as the other physical "things" of which our lives are made.

After it was over (this round at least) I called this process a Spring Cleaning. It fits because right now here in Minnesota we are beginning to emerge from our wintry cocoons to take stock of the house, the yard, the garden and get ready for the riotous few months of outdoor pleasure which God grants the true Minnesotan.

In societal terms, this time is a perfect companion to the Lenten journey, which is its spiritual counterpart.

More from Meg:

"When we consent to a serious relationship with God, grace follows. Cassian notes that none of us has to do all the practices of the spiritual life. But many who answer the inner light begin, through inclination after inclination, to make choices from a discerning heart. Over time, this practice becomes a lifestyle."

What's in YOUR cell?

Another B-16 fly-over

Here's another quote from our Holy Father in which I find much food for thought....

"The Eucharist draws us into Jesus’ act of self-oblation [self-offering]... we enter into the very dynamic of His self-giving. Let us live Lent, then, as a “Eucharistic” time in which, welcoming the love of Jesus, we learn to spread it around us with every word and deed."

—Pope Benedict XVI, Message for Lent 2007: “They shall look on Him whom they have pierced”

Snow din, Snowed In and some Lenten "Blues"

Here in the Upper Midwest we have a phenomenon which happens each time a major winter storm approaches. A barrage of media warns us of the impending apocalypse. Radio, TV, the Internet all unite in a common chorus: warning! major storm coming! batten down the hatches! fire up the snow blower! the leaden grey skies are falling!

I call this barrage the "snow din" because it becomes like background noise after the second or third time. Perhaps you respond ot it, especially if you have a long work commute ahead or the kids will be staying home. But, even then, you realize that there is a certain echo chamber effect because the media just has to get your attention. Yawn.... so it's going to snow again. so what?

Our thought life works like that too, sometimes. When I just manage to get myself quiet enough to do some meditating a stray thought comes along to distract me. If I acknowledge it and dismiss it sometimes it just goes away. But more often it brings back two or three friends in a chorus to try and gain my attention.

"But what about X......?"

"Shouldn't I be concerned about Y....?"

"I'll bet Z.........."

Like a rising chorus the stray thoughts gang up until they gain an hearing. But if I'm attentive to their game plan and can realize that this is just the way things work, I can safely dismiss, ignore and get back to my practice.

Much like the media, we get wise to the game and refuse to be suckered in and distracted by it.

These past 3 days of the snowstorm I've had lots of time to think about these things, especially in light of my work around guarding the thoughts, courtesy of Meg Funk. See my earlier post on "Thoughts Do Matter."

But last evening at dusk, at the end of my Evening Prayer, I received a grace moment. It was not strictly related to the guarding of thoughts, but it brought about a similar peaceful quiet in the soul.

I was sitting in my living room/ chapel praying and I looked out the window at precisely the correct time to see a still, blue world. Nothing was moving, nothing stood out. All was overcast in the deep blue haze one can only get when surrounded by massive amounts of snow and a paucity of natural light. You can see little glimmers of this by looking in the shadows of snow banks during the afternoon. But this was a whole scene..... amazing..... it took my breath away. Instead of the evening being a depressing time as sometimes happens, this was a "blues" moment to be cherished.

Ascesis: the True Sign of Jonas

Ascesis.... an unusual word, perhaps only a little more recognizable to us Westerners in its "-ism" form, asceticism. Ascesis can be defined as "rigorous self-denial and active self-restraint."

Lent is all about ascesis.... it's about realizing who we are and where we've come from and starting off to be new creatures journeying to a new place. We give up things for Lent and make changes, but its not just another New Year's resolution or an attempt at self reformation. It's about something much bigger.

In today's Mass readings we hear about the Ninevites who repent at Jonah's preaching.... and the followers of Jesus are summoned to deal with something "much greater," the living incarnation of God in the sign of Jonas, the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus.

The forces which shape our lives are our mind, will and emotions. The way we use these tools to live our lives stamps us indelibly with a sign, the sign of Jonas, as we turn away from ourselves, die to self and rise to journey toward the God who created us.

Permit me one final quote (I'm moving on to some other texts for the remainder of Lent) from Michael Casey's Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina (p. 123). No, I do not get a commission from promoting his books.

"Thus, there is a role for negative elements of discipleship: abstinence and asceticism. This means subjecting our emotions or passions to discernment and compelling those that are unruly (the vices) to accept the governance of the will under grace.

Consistent practice gradually cleanses our system of its poisons and leads to that purity of heart which, according to the beatitudes, sees God. When the Fathers spoke about apatheia (or victory over the passions) they were more interested in the single-heartedness that was its effect than in mere denial or suppression of instinctual impulses.

As Peter Brown has noted, the ascetical movement was not a denial of the body but an affirmation of its importance; instead of dismissing bodily impulses as insignificant to the state of the soul, it affirmed the interdependence of the state of the passions and the operation of the spirit. Katharsis or purification was a necessary process in realizing the potential inherent in the spiritual nature of human beings."

Lent: Change without noise

Benedict XVI spoke this past week concerning the power of love to change this violent world. This power is akin to the power of Lenten observance itself: quiet, unobserved change in our own practice which bring our lives into closer alignment with God's love. It's a quiet, but radical revolution.

The "Christian revolution" of love is able to uproot evil and sow goodness in the world, says Benedict XVI. The Pope made that statement when addressing the thousands of people in St. Peter's Square who defied the inclement weather to attend the recitation of the Angelus.

In his address, the Holy Father reflected on Jesus' mandate: "Love your enemies," read in this Sunday's liturgy. "Christ's proposal is realistic, because it takes into account that in the world there is too much violence, too much injustice, and that this situation cannot be overcome without positing more love, more kindness," Benedict XVI said.

"This 'more' comes from God. It is the mercy of God "that has become flesh in Jesus and that alone can redress the balance of the world from evil to good, beginning from that small and decisive 'world' which is man's heart," the Pontiff added.

The Pope clarified that Christian nonviolence is not equivalent to surrendering to evil, which is a false interpretation of "turning the other cheek." "Christian nonviolence" is about "responding to evil with good, thus breaking the chain of injustice," he explained.

This is the novel "Christian revolution," a love that is not supported by "human resources but that is a gift of God," the Holy Father said. "[It] is obtained by trusting unconditionally in his merciful goodness alone."Love of one's enemy, the "core of the 'Christian revolution,'" is not based "on strategies of economic, political or media power," the Pope explained.

For Christians, nonviolence "is not mere tactical behavior but a person's way of being, the attitude of one who is convinced of God's love and power, who is not afraid to confront evil with the weapons of love and truth alone."

Benedict XVI continued: "Herein lies the novelty of the Gospel, which changes the world without making noise. Herein lies the heroism of the 'little ones,' who believe in the love of God and spread it even at the cost of life."

The Holy Father concluded his address by calling for an ever more profound conversion "to the love of Christ" and allowing oneself "to be conquered without reservations by that love, to learn to love as he loved us, to be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful." He said: "I hope that Lent, which begins next Wednesday, will be a propitious period to witness to the Gospel of love."

as reported on Zenit.