I would like to begin to reflect with you on Lent and finish it on Wednesday.  I just want to give you one point to start with.  It=s clear from the Rule that Lent is the time that we reveal how Christian we are.

Benedict=s sharp statement that the life of the monk should always be a Lenten observance points that out. The real question is for Catholics, Lent is the time to really test what they really believe and how they live their belief. The Rule is clear that if you=re going to enter Lent you must understand it from the point of view of Easter. So it presupposes that you have some clear understandings of the mystery of Easter to help you guide your choice of how you embrace Lent.

With that in mind, I looked up a few things in Ephesians, Philippines and listened to Paul. One of Paul=s statements that he made yesterday in the epistle to the Corinthians was that he wants to know Christ. That really flows from the resurrection. Jesus has risen, he=s alive. He=s knowable. Anyone who believes that has the opportunity to have a personal relationship with Jesus. To really come to know him.

The first question is, who do you know in your lives so that you can have some kind of comparison to how you are coming to know Jesus? How does it flow into your Lexcio so that you=re getting to know Jesus more and more?

Let me make a far out example in a sense. Jesus was a very centered person. Calm. He wasn=t dead. He was fully present to things, even negative things, but he was really centered and peaceful. You see this in the boat when the waves are going and Jesus= is sleeping. They have to wake him up, ADon=t you see?@ You see it in a number of other cases when people challenged him rather forth rightly with things that he even answers, AYou bunch of hypocrites!@ So he is able to take these things in stride because he is extremely, deeply peaceful.

That peace is more than just a surface thing of the mind or the heart, it=s down to his very soul. It flows from his whole gift of himself to the Father. That characteristic is there. That means that when we come to Jesus we can come to him with the expectation that he will accept us and listen to us and his peace will flow into us. So getting to know Jesus is to know certain real truths about him that allow us to relate to him rather poignantly.

One of the things we ought to look at in Lent is how do we come to know Jesus more? It=s clear that Paul doesn=t consider himself as having arrived he still wants to know Jesus more. That should be the goal of our life as monks. On the practical level, the easiest way is to take the scriptures out and simply read them from that perspective. Not just read them but pause and pray for the grace to know Jesus and then read them from that point of view. For people that find that the scriptures don=t touch them that way, then it=s probably good to turn to a rather practical commentary like Barkley and do the same thing. Take a Gospel that he has commentated on and simply read but read with the intention to ask the Lord for the grace to come to know him. This is already a very crucial point for the lenten period because after all the Christian life should be one in which we get to know Jesus more deeply every day of our life. The opportunity is ours and we must take advantage of it.

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