Abbot’s Lenten talk , Ash Wednesday, 13 February 2002
So we have passed out the practices that we have agreed upon in the past and continue and I anticipate to see everyone to bless them for their works then visit you in your room. And, of course, the real issue is what kind of attitude are we entering into Lent? What is our attitude? Is it just to do these things? The struggle may be a couple of days later about being faithful to it, then minimize our recreation and our fun and then hopefully receive the Eucharist in a new deeper way at Easter and that’s it? Or do we really enter the Spirit of the Church which calls this in the Eastern Rite the "Great Lent" which in a real sense is a celebration. It’s a celebration of the mercy and love of God for us in saving us. So we really have to take a different attitude toward how we are entering into Lent. How can we do this? Well I think it’s not too difficult if you pause and think. Jesus is absolutely pure and He came and took on our impurity. Now one time one of the Novices, I took them to canoeing in the Cuyahoga River in October, it was a nice day, more or less, and he told me he knew how to navigate the canoe up-front. Sure enough we’re going in the Cuyahoga River and its not exactly a nice pure river, and I could see how he was doing it, all of a sudden I said, "we’re going in." Sure enough we hit this rock formation, he turned this way, and in we went. And I’m going to myself "ER." We psychologically can’t stand impure things coming into our body in contact. Jesus is all pure and He entered freely our impurity. I’m sure more than His skin crawled. Jesus is also innocent. Now, God forbid, anybody accuse you of something you didn’t do. Everything bristles and you are saying "I’m innocent!"
Talk to Fr. Dismas about people in prison. He will tell you they all say they’re innocent. At least most of them. Jesus is perfectly innocent and He took on our crimes. Our real crimes. We do a lot of injustices. Sometimes mouth, sometimes actions, sometimes innuendoes, so on. Then of course Jesus is all holy. And he took on our sins. Now God as holy cannot stand sin, He hates it! And He not only took it on but He in the very great mystery became our sin. And so the love we’re celebrating is the love that’s willing to do these things so that you and I will be set free, totally free. Not when we die, NOW! So if we really pause and reflect on this then we understand it’s been manifested already you know in Moses. When Moses was given the chance he came down with the ten commandments and the people we’re worshiping the calf and then he went back up and God says "Moses move over, let me zap these people I’ll give you some one else," Moses says, "no, If you’re going to do that kill me." And then Paul says in the epistle of the Romans that we just went through,
the other week, "That I would rather die and be damned rather than my countrymen should be lost." He’s not using rhetoric. He’s participating in the attitude that God has toward us and our salvation. And it’s manifested in Jesus’ purity, his innocence and his tremendous holiness, that he’s willing to suffer through so that we would be free.So when we come into Lent we’re here to celebrate His tremendous love his incomprehensible, merciful love toward us. So, if you really let it in you’ve got to respond, right? So the spiritual life traditionally is known to be of purgative, illuminative, and unitive way and you know these things are not today I’m in the purgative mode, and today I’m in..., no, they’re going on all the time, they’re dynamic. So each of us, all of us have to repent. There’s an area in our life that needs to be repented of. Now look at, you know, the news paper, there’s Gruttadoria making decisions. One for you, ten for me. And each of those decisions were based on a desire that he would benefit, and the hell with others. But that’s exactly what we do when we choose to fulfill our desires. Nuts to God, nuts to others and so on. So you really have to ask, "where in my life do I simply do my own thing?" We said we practice poverty, chastity, obedience it’s a good place to start, but you can pick out anything. Where is this. For instance a person who lies and he’s in the community then he has difficulty with relating to the whole community, why? Because he’s physically here but there’s no bond between him and others because when you lie there’s no truth between people and there’s no love. So there’s just a physical presence next to each other. Therefore he diminishes himself and us. Because we need each other, we’re persons. Persons are in relationship.
We need each other to be who we are. We cannot live isolated existence, it’s not possible. Even hermits have to relate to God and the environment and so on. So we all have to look at where do we need to repent. And it should be easy to want to do this because look at what Jesus is willing to do for us. He’s doing this willingly, which means we have nothing to fear. So we can go to him, say please show me where I need to repent. Then what about we’re supposed to be in the illuminative mode, right. That means, we have reached a certain degree in certain areas overcoming sinfulness. But it means also that I need a certain kind of willingness to go for it. For I’m in the right place, God finally got me to the monastery, he finally got me under vows, he finally got me to start serving him but, you know, I only serve him my way. Well, hey, God has a plan. You can’t stop the spiritual life, you’ve got to go all the way all the time. So where do you need that last bit of enlightenment and push of the Spirit to give yourself? You know this has been documented by spiritual authors that people get to a certain level in spiritual life and they kind of find their nitch, and God forbid that you disturb my nitch. You know the famous one is the abbot of Downside that took a bath at four o’clock on Saturday. You know even if bishop came, he takes his bath, it doesn’t matter. Even if Jesus comes, I take my bath. And then what about this great mystery we’re supposed to be in a unitive way the rule says real clearly in Chapter four that we’re supposed to have spiritual longing. What the heck is that stuff! When you fall in love, if you really love, you know you’re at peace and all of a sudden whole world changes. This woman came to me sharing this experience in her life and she says, I can’t believe it. Ever since I met, and she mentioned the guy, and how their friendship is building, how her ordinary life with her mother, with the students, and everything else. She was calm, peaceful. That’s a mere smidgen of what happens when you really reach some kind of receptivity of God’s infinite love for you. You’ll waken a tremendous desire for him and not only that, it’s real. You can say to Jesus, "You’re mine! And I’m yours!" That’s the kind of love that unity is about . And it’s not again, when I die. Oh no, it’s now.
You see Mother Teresa all bent over then you see her pick up a little child and her whole face just lights up and everything. Here she is getting to be at that time maybe in her eighties, bent over, but you know, when you really look at an experience here, you see that she’s got eighty percent of her resurrection done. You see the transformation in her. Where are you in the transformation? That’s the unitive mode. Fifty percent? Ten percent ? Have you started? Do you have a desire to be one with Christ, with God? And is it burning? So if we are really going to enter Lent, we have to meditate long enough to see what we’re really celebrating, so we can celebrate! I should end this homily with the last verse of the hymn that we have in the book "Joyful, joyful," go read it. You’ll be surprised. It’s a nice expression of how we should be going on together. Victory! So I encourage you not just to fulfill the things that we have done, that’s important. And I’m glad you’re doing it but I want you to really spend some time and really reflect on this tremendous, merciful love that we’re celebrating the whole of Lent in a very special way and in the light of it enter and live it out.