Lenten Season Quotes

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

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.

as I step into another Lenten season, I bring to you what requires your graced touch. You know what will further my well-being. I open my mind and heart to you with confidence that you will tend with care what troubles me.

Eternal Father, please strengthen me during this holy season so that I may no longer mistake the gifts for the Giver.

But when we feel we are not understood, there is a sense in which we are homeless. And so we must always provide a home of understanding. There will inevitably be times when we do not understand someone’s behavior or a certain response, but we can understand the person.

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

This death that I have just described is a process of daily scanning our lives to see where things still live in us that should not live, then praying for the strength to die once again. Like the death of Jesus, this death is not a defeat, but a huge and glorious victory. For everywhere you die, you will be resurrected to new life in that area. It is the continuing resurrection/transformation/liberation work of sanctifying grace. So this season, how about scanning your heart and life?

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.

I Will Not Take Back My Love A few days ago we considered Psalm 89 in which God says, “I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered” (Ps 89:34, NIV). Let us linger on the first of these promises, to which we desire to respond, “I will not take back my love.” How do we take back our love? I would like to ponder three ordinary ways that we take back our love. We take back our love often enough, and we do not know it, in the little seeming obstacles from without. We are determined to love God fully and perfectly, with all of our being, with all of our strength, as God asks of us in the commandments, but then a circumstance or situation comes along, and we take back our love. We weren’t expecting this. I trust it is very humiliating (and would pray it is humbling as well) to realize what little obstacles can entice us to take back our love. Then there are

for us what he will do to those who refuse to keep his commands. He says he will “punish them with a rod”, and he will “scourge them on account of their guilt”. Then God, being God, immediately adds, “I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness.” We want to look for the places where we betray our faithfulness. “O God, I will love you forever and ever, but not in this.” And so I take back my love on this occasion, in this seeming obstacle, in this friendly little event that I mistake for a foe. What are the foes within that want to entice us to take back our love? Perhaps our moodiness, our mood swings. Today I love God with all my heart, and then tomorrow I am feeling depressed, discouraged; I am tempted, which is the common lot of all men. Our dear Lord was discouraged in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had to do something about it. No one was ever so tempted to discouragement as he who sweat blood over it. He had that great temptation of saying: “What’s the use? All this suffering for men, some of whom will not respond.” He was often tempted to sadness, but we never see him depressed. He always went forward in his love, never taking it back. Finally, we can take back our love by failing to make it grow every day. The seemingly untoward circumstances from without, or the sometimes miasmic fumes within us, are dealt with

by doing more. Every time that I do not take back my love when there is something to oppose my own plan, my own desire, my own idea of holiness, then love, ipso facto, increases. Every little sacrifice accepted and offered, every situation that seems untoward but is met as a friend, will help us grow in faith, in holiness, and in love. Each time, with God’s grace, I put down the inimical forces within myself, I am stronger. Conversely, every time I stop before an obstacle, my love grows weaker. Every time I indulge those debilitating forces within me, my love grows weaker. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

Lord Jesus Christ, you call each one of us by name. You know our needs and know us better than we know ourselves. Guide each of us in our Lenten pilgrimage, that we might listen for your voice and faithfully follow where you lead. Lead us to that place of freedom and Easter joy. Amen.