Lenten Quotes

Here the whole world (stars, water, air, And field, and forest, as they were Reflected in a single mind) Like cast off clothes was left behind In ashes, yet with hopes that she, Re-born from holy poverty, In lenten lands, hereafter may Resume them on her Easter Day." (Epitaph for Joy Davidman)

Madeleine L'Engle observes: "We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.

A good lenten answer! I can tell thee where that saying was born, of ‘I fear no colours.

The only man on earth who has in his heart the memory of his African home; the horrors of a slave raid; the barracoon; the Lenten tones of slavery; and who has sixty-seven years of freedom in a foreign land behind him.

As we make the first step into the "bright sadness" of Lent, we see—far, far away—the destination. It is the joy of Easter, it is the entrance into the glory of the Kingdom. And it is this vision, the foretaste of Easter, that makes Lent's sadness bright and our lenten effort a "spiritual spring." The night may be dark and long, but all along the way a mysterious and radiant dawn seems to shine on the horizon.

him.You are good, O God, and You are faithful. Tenderize and soften our Lenten hearts, we pray, lest they grow brittle and break.

But mortification - literally, "making death" - is what life is all about, a slow discovery of the mortality of all that is created so that we can appreciate its beauty without clinging to it as if it were a lasting possession. Our lives can indeed be seen as a process of becoming familiar with death, as a school in the art of dying . . . all these times have passed by like friendly visitors, leaving you with dear memories but also with the sad recognition of the shortness of life. In every arrival there is a leave-taking; in every reunion there is a separation; in each one's growing up there is a growing old; in every smile there is a tear; and in every success there is a loss. All living is dying and all celebration is mortification too.

The minute we feel safety in numbers, we tend to start judging.

But as Walter Brueggemann says, the problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.

without truth, people cannot heal. If we ignore the root cause of our wounds, we will continue to be wounded, even if we heal some of the damage. We might fix what has been harmed. But if we continue doing what caused the harm in the first place, we will simply acquire (or inflict) new wounds because the core activity has not changed.

Lord Jesus, help us to see the beauty in the gospel of forgiveness as you have proclaimed it, and liberate us from our wrong ideas about an angry, violent, and retributive God. Amen.

Most of us are under pressure, external and internal, to do everything, be good at everything, be accountable to everyone for everything! It is not so. In the divine economy each of us has a particular grace, gift and devotion. Finding out what that is, and learning how to be guilt-free about not doing everything else, may be part of what our Lenten journey is for.

The truth is that for most of us economic self-interest is the single greatest obstacle to full participation in the kingdom of God. We cannot love our neighbor as our self without being willing to share our wealth.

Most of us are scripted to think that life is a game and the purpose of life is to win. This is the way that seems right. But the divine truth is that life is a gift and the purpose of life is to learn to love well.

Of late, Mrs. Grouse had come to see virtually everything he enjoyed as a potential source of upset. She seemed intent on making his remaining years one long Lenten season. When he objected, she reminded him that objections were upsetting. “Send

which contemporary ecclesiastics were in good favor, which in bad, what recent theological hypothesis was suspect, and how this or that Jesuit or Dominican had skated on thin ice or sailed near the wind in his Lenten discourses; he had everything except the Faith,

We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it." Reflection based on Matthew 4:1-11

Keep the faith, brothers and sisters. Yesterday our Lord was crucified. Today his body lies in the tomb. Tomorrow he rises from the dead. Saturday can seem like a long day–and it is–but be of good cheer. The crucifixion is behind us, Saturday will not last forever. Sooner than we think, Sunday will be here.

There must have been a problem, we offer. God must have something even better around the corner, we propose. Must He? Here, then is my Lenten plea for the day: let the mourning mourn. Grant those who grieve the dignity to ask questions. Bestow upon the bewildered permission to not edit their honesty. Crucifixion is, after all, serious work.

No goal is more worthy of such seriousness than reaching heaven by following Jesus and putting God first in all things.

As the Wonderful Counselor — He makes the plans. As the Mighty God —He makes the plans work.

Sorrow looks back. Worry looks around. Faith looks up.

There is no defeat in the cross. Only triumph is to be found there.

Ask the questions: “How has God loved me today?” and “How have I loved God and my neighbor today?

God’s perspective on our lives is the only important one.

To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, Jesus is not safe, but he is good. He does not always do what we expect, but what he does is always for the best.

The cross is not the appeasement of an angry and retributive god. The cross is not where Jesus saves us from God, but where Jesus reveals God as savior. The cross is not what God inflicts upon Jesus in order to forgive, but what God in Christ endures as he forgives. The cross is where the sin of the world coalesced into a hideous singularity so that it might be forgiven en masse. The cross is where the world violently sinned its sins in the body of the Son of God, and where he absorbed it all, praying, “Father, forgive them.” The cross is both ugly and beautiful. It’s as ugly as human sin and as beautiful as divine love—but in the end love and beauty win. Lord Jesus, as we look at you on the cross, with your arms outstretched in proffered embrace, we pray, forgive us, Lord, for we know not what we do. Amen.

No soul ever fell away from God without giving up prayer. Prayer is that which establishes contact with the divine power and opens the invisible resources of heaven. However dark the way, when we pray, temptation can never master us. The first step downward in the average soul is the giving up of the practice of prayer, the breaking of the circuit with divinity, and the proclamation of one’s own self-sufficiency.

My fingers felt awkward. They weren't used to moving in these ways. They weren't used to making creases and folding with precision. My eyes had to adjust as well, because they naturally gravitated to the painful words that I knew were on these pieces of paper. Forget about my heart; you know how I said this was a Lenten practice: It's called a practice because it's an act of training, a discipline to do something you're not naturally inclined to do.

Coveting (which is the engine of capitalism) places us in economic competition with our neighbors and makes it very difficult for us to engage in neighborly love. When we’re in competition with our neighbors it’s hard to love them.

It is through the way of the cross that Jesus gives glory to God, receives glory from God, and makes God’s glory known to us. The glory of the resurrection can never be separated from the glory of the cross. The risen Lord always shows us his wounds.

Recently a well-known megachurch pastor said, “When I’m looking for a leader I want the meanest, toughest son of a gun I can find.” Whether he understands it or not, this evangelical pastor is saying, “Give us Barabbas!” For many American Christians the politics of Jesus are dismissed as impractical and so they kick the can down the road saying, “maybe someday we can turn our swords into plowshares, but now is the time for us to build more B-2 bombers and stockpile nukes so we can kill all our enemies.” The crowd that gathers on Good Friday shouting, “Give us Barabbas!,” is far more plausible and numerous than most of us imagine. If we think that killing our enemies is compatible with Christian ethics, we are in effect saying, “Give us Barabbas!” But Lent is the time to rethink everything in the light of Christ. We are not called to scrutinize the Sermon on the Mount through the lens of the Pentagon; we are called to follow Jesus by embodying the kingdom of God here and now, no matter what the rest of the world does.

The season of Lent is the time for us to take a journey; an inward journey. The season of Lent is as the prophet Joel writes, “a time for us to rend our hearts and not our clothing.” It is a time for self-examination; a time to get to know ourselves a little better. Often times for Lent people will give up a favorite food, or some other form of self-sacrifice. These things are all well and good IF they come from the heart, IF they are a true attempt to re-connect with the Spirit inside us. Otherwise, we are simply “rending” our clothes.

PRACTICE Today, wear your oldest and least presentable clothes, no matter what's on the schedule. Notice how people react. Think about what it is like to move about in a consumerist society when you cannot afford to keep up appearances. Pray for awareness regarding your own sense of self-worth when you are not “looking your best.” Ask to be freed up from this unnecessary self-preoccupation. Notice how the flowers grow. They do not toil or spin. But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of them. (Lk 12:27)

The four gospels do not tell us much about what happened on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We know that after Jesus died, the disciples stayed behind locked doors for fear of the Jewish leaders (John 20:19). Their fear was well-founded because on that Saturday, the chief priests and the Pharisees met with Pilate and asked him to order the tomb sealed to prevent the disciples from stealing Jesus’ body (Matthew 27:62-66). After the resurrection, those same religious leaders would bribe the guards so they would spread the rumor that the disciples had indeed stolen Jesus’ body from the tomb (Matthew 28:11-15). In a bizarre twist, Jesus’ opponents had a greater belief in his resurrection than his disciples.

There is a fundamental distinction between destitution and poverty. Francis, in his yearly Lenten message in 2014, distinguishes between moral destitution, spiritual destitution, and material destitution. The pope says that spiritual destitution is still the most serious because man is cut off from his natural source, which is God. Thus he writes that “we experience. . . spiritual destitution. . . when we turn away from God and reject his love. If we think we don’t need God who reaches out to us through Christ, because we believe we can make do on our own, we are headed for a fall. God alone can truly save and free us.” In contrast, material destitution leads in fact to a subhuman sort of life that is the source of great suffering. It seems that there are no prospects left. But

He stands by a window. A flock of starlings settles among the tight black buds of a bare tree. Then, like black buds unfolding, they open their wings; they flutter and sing, stirring everything into motion, air, wings, black notes in music. He becomes aware that he is watching them with pleasure: that something almost extinct, some small gesture towards the future, is ready to welcome the spring; in some spare, desperate way, he is looking forward to Easter, the end of Lenten fasting, the end of penitence. There is a world beyond this black world. There is a world of the possible. A world where Anne can be queen is a world where Cromwell can be Cromwell. He sees it; then he doesn't. The moment is fleeting. But insight cannot be taken back. You cannot return to the moment you were in before.

As human beings, we tend to look at things through the lenses of cultural standards. Much like the Israelites, we view success in the human terms of material wealth. By those standards, it’s okay to hoard goods because if we can hoard goods it means we have the means to do so and so we are successful. During this time of Lent, we are asked to look at ourselves through a different lens. We are to look at our selves through God’s lens. The idea of any spiritual practice is to help us see our own flaws through the light of God, not humanity. The idea of the spiritual practice is not so much to point the flaws as it is to see the goodness, the Godness, which is in each of us. All of us are flawed and God loves us anyway. It is only in acknowledging and accepting these flaws that we can begin to see the Godliness that is in each of us.

At its best there’s nothing like the church. A place where Matthew 25 is just a normal day—a place where the poor are fed and clothed, the sick are helped and healed, a place where the immigrant is welcomed, and the prisoner is given dignity. A place where everyone is saint and sinner. A place where a judge and a felon can sit side by side on the same pew with equal status in Christ. A place where we not only carry each other’s burdens, but when necessary carry each other, because, despite our vast differences in education and opportunity, opinions and politics, we are learning to love one another like Jesus loves us—unconditionally. This is the church I believe in. Lord Jesus, help us to behold the church as our mother. And help us to care for our mother, the church, in such a way that she can provide motherly love and care for her sons and daughters. Amen.

And so the Savior of the world directs us toward a re-appropriation of Lamech’s seventy time seven equation, applying it to the practice of radical forgiveness. The most remarkable thing about Christ-informed ethics is its commitment to forgiveness—indeed, if Christianity is about anything, it’s about forgiveness. So Jesus calls us beyond the ever-escalating revenge of Lamech and beyond the mitigated revenge of Moses into a world where revenge is renounced altogether. Jesus saves the world by turning exponential revenge into exponential forgiveness.

Jesus’ triumphal entry was the anti-military parade. It was a mockery of Rome’s intimidating show of military power. It also presented Jerusalem with a stark contrast between the way of war and the way of peace. At the beginning of Holy Week, Pontius Pilate and Jesus of Nazareth are at the head of two very different parades.  The question for us is which parade are we marching in—the military parade of Pilate that still believes the world is to be shaped by war, or the peace parade of Jesus that understands that with the coming of Christ war has been abolished?

The Seer's Map by Stewart Stafford Howling dog, thou cursèd hound, Plaguest thy master with baleful sound, The cur's yelps taint the air around; A dirge for all that hear thy wound. The rooftop magpie foretells: Herald of guests to visit soon, A noisy speech announceth, Companions of the afternoon. Lucky horseshoe and iron key, Bringeth good fortune to the finder, But spilling salt provokes fate, And draws the evil eye's reminder. A shoe upon the table laid, Tempts the dead to live anon, For this ungracious gesture waketh, Flesh and blood from skeleton. Who crosses the path of hare or priest, A perilous milestone on thy road, Their very presence signifies That gathering trouble doth forebode. A toad on thy merry travels, Brings sweet smiles and kindest charms, Keep one about thy person warm, To shelter safe from danger's harms. Red sky at night delights the eye, Of shepherd that beholds thy light, Thy colour doth betoken dawn Of weather fair and clear and bright. Red sky at morn troubles the heart, Of shepherd that surveys thy shade, Thy hue doth presage day Of stormy blast and tempest made. December's thunder balm, Speaks of harvest's tranquil mind, January's thunder, fierce! Warns of war and gales unkind. An itchy palm hints at gold To come into thy hand ere long, But if thou scratch it, thou dost lose The fair wind that blows so strong. A Sunday Christmas forewarns: Three signs of what the year shall hold; A winter mild, a Lenten wind, And summer dry, to then unfold. Good luck charm on New Year's Day Maketh fortune bloom all year, But to lose it or give it away, Thou dost invite ill-omened fear. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

So Jesus explained to his disciples that though the way of empire is to seek domination, “it shall not be so among you.” The kingdom of God is a kingdom of love, not domination. As followers of Jesus we are called to the practice of radical patience, because the kingdom of God is without coercion. We persuade by love, witness, Spirit, reason, rhetoric, and if need be, by martyrdom, but never by force. This is what Alan Kreider described as “the patient ferment of the early church.

The early church understood that the kingdom of God did not and could not come through Caesar or the ways of Caesar, thus they had no ambition to wield the power of Caesar’s sword. There is no such thing as a Christlike Caesar—there is only Christ and his cross. May we remember this today.

The unvarnished Jesus cannot be empirically proved or reduced to a spokesperson for a preferred ism. Jesus will not be the poster boy for left-wing activism or right-wing militarism. Jesus has his own agenda—it’s just and peaceable, but first of all it worships God.

The devil came to Jesus the same way the devil comes to us—disguised as our own thoughts. As Jesus considered the course of his ministry, the devil tempted him to compromise the integrity of his mission. Jesus couldn’t be tempted by overt evil, so the devil tempted him with a trilogy of “good ideas.” The three good ideas suggested by the devil were to feed everyone, persuade everyone, and liberate everyone. And who could disagree with these ideas? They seem like good ideas. But there’s a devil lurking in those good ideas, a devil that Jesus discerned.

But if we never actually ask Jesus to specifically and definably intervene in our life, though we may shield ourselves from disappointment, we also preclude the possibility of experiencing a miracle. We need to risk disappointment in prayer.

But it’s how the temple tax is paid that makes the story so delightful—from a shekel coin found in a fish’s mouth! People who followed Jesus always found that there was somehow more than enough. Water turned into wine, loaves and fish multiplied, and money for a tax bill was found in a fish’s mouth. Jesus taught his disciples not to worry about provision. When we seek first the kingdom of God, what we need will be provided.

Here’s what is important to understand: your groaning is either anger that you’ve not gotten your way or a cry that God would get his holy, loving, wise, and righteous way. Groaning is either, “Will my kingdom ever come?” or it is, “Your kingdom come.” It is good to stop and examine your groaning and to give yourself to a season of the right kind of groaning. After all, you do live in a groaning place. Paul says it this way in Romans 8:22: “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in pains of childbirth until now.

As passé as it may sound to cynical ears, if we want faith in Jesus to remain realistically possible in a secular age, one of the most valuable things we can do is bring children to church. We need to raise  children in the community that is formed and sustained by the grand narrative of Scripture—a story that culminates in the gospel of Jesus Christ. In an irreligious culture where not much is sacred, we need to introduce children to the sacred place where sacrament is formative and faith is normative.

Wars of conquest, capital punishment, violent retribution, the institution of slavery, and women held as property are all “biblical,” but when seen in the light brighter than the sun shining from the face of Christ, everything must be re-evaluated because Jesus is what God has to say!

In the story a group of people worked all day and received a fair wage for a day’s work. But another group of people worked only one hour and received the same wage. We deride that as welfare. We’re convinced it’s inequitable. We call it unfair. But Jesus calls it the kingdom of heaven! The kingdom of heaven is not a meritocracy; the kingdom of heaven is an economy of grace. The vineyard owner (who obviously represents God) was more interested in giving people what they needed than giving them what they deserved—and he was willing to do so at his own expense. The only person who suffers loss in this parable is the vineyard owner. In this story no one is cheated. The anger of the group paid last was based not in any injustice they had suffered, but in their own envious resentment.

This message is loud and clear when we read Pope Emeritus Benedict’s Lenten message of 2009 when he says, “this practice (fasting) needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day.” He also says that “it seems abundantly clear that fasting represents an important ascetical practice, a spiritual arm to do battle against every possible disordered attachment to ourselves.

Stations of the Cross are usually observed during lent, especially of Lenten Fridays and most importantly on Good Friday. This is the one popular devotion for Roman Catholics. The purpose of this devotion is to focus on the Passion of the Christ.

We remain for the time being in the valley of the shadow of death. But the grace and mercy of Jesus, especially in this holy season of Lent, assure us that life looms on the horizon.

As the book of Proverbs says, “There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death.” Most of us are scripted to think that life is a game and the purpose of life is to win. This is the way that seems right. But the divine truth is that life is a gift and the purpose of life is to learn to love well.

Today let’s remember to pay attention to the little ones around us. Seek them out. Lift them up. Give them the grace of being seen, heard, and respected. Let us alert the overlooked to the dignity that is theirs by virtue of being a child of God.

Though we could speak of doing the impossible, I think it’s better to speak of becoming what we once thought was impossible. The emphasis should always be on becoming over doing. At one point in his life Abraham thought it was impossible for him to become a father—it was so impossible that he laughed at the thought of it. But through faith that’s exactly what he became. The seed of faith grew in Abraham’s life until one day he became what he had previously assumed was impossible.

There is an innocence in admitting that we are too blind to pass judgment on others. We don’t have to have an opinion on everything, especially when the question is who is to blame. It’s enough for us to say, “I don’t know who is to blame, I’m just here to help.” But when we claim to have 20/20 vision in judging the sins of others and assigning blame, our own sin remains.

Today let’s listen for the peaceable voice of our Good Shepherd. We live in a time when there is an increase of demagogues and populist leaders making messiah-like claims—“Only I can fix it.” But if it’s a voice that cherishes the memory of colonialism (stealing), or endorses war because God is on our side (killing), or incites hostility toward vilified scapegoats (destruction), you can be sure it’s not a voice that comes from the Good Shepherd, and is not a voice Christians should follow. Let us be so accustomed to listening to the voice of the unvarnished Jesus found in the Gospels that we are sheep who will not follow the voice of a stranger.

This story should speak to modern people in a particular way. Social media is especially susceptible to a mob spirit, and we must resist it. Let Lent be a time for us to repent of casting stones with the mob. Those of us who follow Jesus can never follow the crowd and must never act according to the mob spirit.

In the 21st century, the devil still tells big lies. In an age of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons capable of eradicating all human life, the way of war is still foolishly romanticized and deemed a legitimate way to shape the world. But Lent is a time to repent, to rethink, to reimagine. Today let us heed the warning of Jesus and remember that there is no way to peace…peace is the way.

In the Temple the Pharisee is fully aware of the tax collector as he vainly poses before God. The tax collector, on the other hand, is aware only of his own sin and his desperate need for God’s mercy. And the tax collector is the only one who received God’s mercy.

of the best documents ever written on fasting is a document that was written by Pope Benedict, his 2009 Lenten Message on Fasting. The Holy Father says, “I wish to focus my reflections especially on the value and meaning of fasting.” Then he said, “Jesus, too, through prayer and fasting, prepared Himself for the mission that lay before Him, marked at the start by a serious battle with the tempter.

Martha, the busy sister, is well-intended, but her noble intentions aren’t enough to prevent her from being anxious and troubled. Peace of mind is not the merited award for strict adherence to duty, but is a state cultivated through contemplative practices centered on Jesus. Isaiah said, “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on you.” Without some form of contemplative practice we will spend too much time in one of three undesirable mental states: drifting back into the painful past, flitting about in the distracted present, or rushing ahead into the anxious future. Mary had learned the good practice—to sit with Jesus in the contemplative present. Without intentionally cultivating what Brother Lawrence called “the practice of the presence of God,” our service for God will eventually become burdensome and will either be abandoned or carried out as an onerous duty.

Who is my neighbor? The person I have an opportunity to love, help, and alleviate their suffering. The biblical text case for love of God is love of neighbor and the biblical test case for love of neighbor is love of enemy.

Jesus knows what it is to feel forsaken by God, and in his suffering Jesus uttered the bewildered Cry of Dereliction. But in his death Jesus committed his spirit into the hands of the Father he knows will never forsake him. Sometimes when we’ve done all we can do, there’s nothing more to be done than to put everything in the hands of the God who will never abandon us.

There truly was a time when it could be said that God is dead, because whatever it means for a human being to experience the final dissolution of death, God in Christ has fully experienced. When we speak of Incarnation and Immanuel our minds are immediately drawn to Christmas and the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in the manger. But Christ is never more Immanuel than when he is wrapped in grave clothes lying in the tomb. Yes, Jesus Christ is God with us in birth and life, but he is also God with us in sorrow and death.

One thief sees in Jesus the possibility of a new kingdom centered in forgiveness and believes. The other thief cannot resist the old satanic way of exporting guilt through blame…but only one response leads to the Paradise of union with Christ.

Jesus had tried to pull Jerusalem back from its hell-bent ways, but he knew that he had only given Jerusalem a forty-year stay of sentence. Jesus was the green tree who taught and embodied the way of peace and love, yet he was still crucified. The sons of the weeping women of Jerusalem will be the dry wood who will foolishly advocate for the way of war. Jesus is saying that if the Romans can inflict such a fire of suffering on the green tree of peacemaking, what amount of suffering will they kindle in the dry trees of war-waging. Jesus weeps for these women and their children because he knows that Jerusalem is headed for hell—the hell of war.

Finally, the cross re-founds the world. When we see Jesus lifted up on the cross, perfectly displaying the love of God by forgiving the sin of the world, we find the place where human society is reorganized. Instead of a world organized around an axis of power enforced by violence, we discover a world organized around an axis of love expressed in forgiveness. As we gaze long upon the sacred mystery of Christ crucified, we find ourselves being drawn into the saving orbit of love and forgiveness.

Our lives can indeed be seen as a process of becoming familiar with death, as a school in the art of dying. I do not mean this in a morbid way. On the contrary, when we see life constantly relativized by death, we can enjoy it for what it is: a free gift.

In every arrival there is a leave-taking; in every reunion there is a separation; in each one’s growing up there is a growing old; in every smile there is a tear; and in every success there is a loss. All living is dying, and all celebration is mortification too.

the celebration of the resurrection of the body is also the celebration of the daily care given to the bodies of these handicapped men and women. Washing and feeding, pushing wheelchairs, carrying, kissing, and caressing— these are all ways in which these broken bodies are made ready for the moment of a new life. Not only their wounds but also the care given them will remain visible in the resurrection.

The body is not a prison to escape from, but a temple in which God already dwells, and in which God’s glory will be fully manifested on the day of the resurrection.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who has come closer to Jesus by forsaking the church.

It’s not sin that disqualifies us as disciples of Jesus, but quitting. Peter denied Jesus, but he didn’t quit, and he was forgiven and restored. Judas betrayed Jesus…and hung himself. Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and Peter’s denial of Jesus were not categorically different sins; they may have differed in culpability, but they were similar. If Peter could be forgiven and restored, so could Judas.

The crowd that gathers on Good Friday shouting, “Give us Barabbas!,” is far more plausible and numerous than most of us imagine. If we think that killing our enemies is compatible with Christian ethics, we are in effect saying, “Give us Barabbas!

And how Jesus became King on Good Friday is how his Kingdom still comes today. It comes by co-suffering love expressed in forgiveness. It doesn’t come by the Machiavellian machinations of politics or by the blood letting of a battlefield. How the Kingdom of Christ comes into the world has nothing to do with who sits in the White House or with who runs the Pentagon.

And what we don’t find in the parable is just as significant. There is no appeasement theology. The father doesn’t first rush to the servants’ quarters to beat a whipping boy and satisfy his wrath before he can forgive his wayward son. No! In the story of the prodigal son, the father bears the loss and forgives his son from his treasury of inexhaustible love. He just forgives. There is no payment, there is no appeasement. Justice as punishment is what the resentful brother called justice. Justice as reconciliation is what the loving father called justice. The only wrath we find in the parable belongs to the Pharisee-like older brother, not the God-like father.

They prayed and called upon the Name of the Lord, Panaghia, the Angels and Saints in their everyday life, as though it were second nature. They kept strict fasts; observed Feast days and name days; censed their homes each Saturday night and eve of holy days; journeyed through the Lenten seasons for the Dormition of the Holy Theotokos, Christmas, and Easter as spiritual pilgrims; looked upon Ta Phota (Epiphany) and Pentecost as days of rededication; and they unconsciously made arrangements for Memorials, Artoklasia (Blessing of Five Loaves), Parakleses (Prayers of Supplication), Ephchelia (Unction), and a host of other Orthodox Christian religious practices which were a part of their life from as far back as they could remember.17

Bodily purity is primarily attained by fasting, and, through bodily purity, spiritual purity is also attained. Abstinence from food, according to the words of that son of grace, St. Ephraim the Syrian, means: “Not to desire or ask for various foods, either sweet or costly; not to eat anything outside the designated time; not to succumb to the spirit of gluttony; not to excite hunger in oneself by looking at good food; and not to desire at one moment one kind of food and at another moment another kind of food.” Great is the fallacy that fasting and Lenten food harm the health of the body.

True peace has a firm trust in God despite its own past sins; false peace shrinks from the thought of God because it will not put an end to present sins.

brought us to this acceptable time, to this prolonged day of salvation. This is the acceptable time, and the Apostle Paul is begging us not to receive the graces of this time in vain (see 2 Cor 6:1). He is also implying that there will be struggle, that this is a great testing ground, and that as we grow in our awareness of our need for redemption and in a very humble attitude toward others, so do we nourish the will to make a sustained effort to do better.

While there is a great sadness in considering this, there is also a marvelous expansion of thought and of spirit, and a great incentive to us. God is glorified by every assent of the heart to whatever suffering God has planned as our part in the redemption of the world. Think of that. Always, when the heart assents to whatever sacrifice God asks, a larger picture opens out before us. The more God is glorified by the assent of the heart, the more do we see how God is asking us to glorify him further.

While there is a great sadness in considering this, there is also a marvelous expansion of thought and of spirit, and a great incentive to us. God is glorified by every assent of the heart to whatever suffering God has planned as our part in the redemption of the world. Think of that. Always, when the heart assents to whatever sacrifice God asks, a larger picture opens out before us. The more God is glorified by the assent of the heart, the more do we see how God is asking us to glorify him further. This means that we die to self-involvement, to entanglements, to what would make us remain alone with self, involved with self, entangled with self—a terrible state to be in. We want to lead lives of much dying so that much fruit can spring up. This is what it is to glorify God.

Whenever the heart, by God’s grace in the soul, emerges out of turmoil into God’s victory and God is glorified, the person, too, is glorified. One has new strength to give new assents, and one also has a new understanding of the great fruit that comes out of dying, experiencing in one’s own self what it is to come into the radiance of God out of the dark turmoil of human weakness. And so the person is glorified. There is a new strength, a new understanding.

We are most his when we show that his love has come upon us, when in our dealings with one another we are at the feet of one another, always forgiving, always hoping, always determined to abstain from the luxury of discouragement about others or about ourselves—for if Jesus has believed in each one of us, we must believe, not in ourselves, but in his belief in us.

This is the only description of a successful community: that we love one another, each of us, all of us, no matter what—as Jesus loved his community, no matter what, and sought to the very end to save them.

Pride is what we think ourselves to be; humility is the truth we know about ourselves, not in the eyes of our neighbor, but in the eyes of God.

When pride comes, then comes disgrace; but wisdom is with the humble. PROVERBS 11:2

How would you alter the expression of a covenant on parchment? It could be by adding words that were not originally there. Or it could be by obliterating words in favor of other words. For instance, we might add the word “sometimes”. This would be to alter the covenant. We could add “when possible” to the covenant of obedience, of poverty, of chaste love, of spiritual life. We could alter the covenant by a very small word: “if”. We could alter the covenant by adding the words “when convenient”.

When a covenant is engraved into stone, one could alter that covenant by chipping it away. On a spiritual level, external infidelity or carelessness chips away at the covenant. Or it can be washed away. We know how water can wear away a stone. Water is so weak and stone so strong; but it is a wondrous thing to behold that a little fountain dripping,

dripping, dripping or running very slowly onto a stone will put a groove into it. This could be done on a spiritual level by a persistent little flow of hidden interior infidelities—the dark thoughts. These are frightening considerations, and they are meant to be, so that we realize the horror of altering a covenant, of adjusting, of manipulating the truth.

themselves such moments. Jesus Christ, who did not cling to his divinity, but became as we are, can be found where there are hungry, thirsty, alienated, naked, sick, and imprisoned people. Precisely when we live in an ongoing conversation with Christ and allow his Spirit to guide our lives, we will recognize him in the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden, and will hear his cry and respond to it wherever he reveals himself. So worship becomes ministry and ministry becomes worship, and all we say or do, ask for or give, becomes a way to the life in which God’s compassion can manifest itself.

The whole life of Jesus was a rising to the occasion. What we call the great Resurrection is a crown on his lifetime of resurrections. The wonderful thing about our faults, our weaknesses, is that all of them can eventuate in a resurrection. God’s grace is there to make this possible.

A muscle that is not growing stronger every day from being used is growing weaker. A mind that is not exercised every day is not remaining on its own level of intelligence but growing weaker. Every force within us either grows in vigor and expands, or it grows more languid and diminishes. This is true above all of love. This is the only way that we don’t take back our love: by allowing it to grow every day.

Yet, in order to hear the call of his kingdom, we must silence the trumpets of our own ego, success, and pride that we continually blow.

Mourning means you recognize the most important reality in the human existence, sin. Mourning means you have been hit by the weight of what it has done to you and to everyone you know.

SIMPLE TRUTHS “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” MATTHEW 25:40