On Ash Wednesday, we heard God’s powerful invitation through
the prophet Joel to all of us: “return to me, with all your heart.” The heart, in biblical language, symbolizes
the center of the person, the whole person.
During Lent, we are invited by God to return to Him fully, wholly,
entirely.
Return from where? From our sins of course, from our
wandering, from our cavorting with empty promises, with false Gods.
From the prophet Hosea, we hear how
Israel, who was called to cling to God with their whole heart, had been unfaithful,
like an adulteress. Israel was to be God’s
bride, clinging to God her husband, yet, she had taken up with the false gods
of the surrounding Canaanite culture.
So God said, “I will lead her into the desert and speak to
her heart.” In order to free Israel from her adulterous relationship, God would
bring her into the desert. Why the
desert? In the desert, we are freed from our distractions and sinful
attachments. There are no tv’s, no
iphones, no gossiping, no casinos, no bars out in the desert. In the desert, we are nursed back to
spiritual health by encountering God’s mercy.
This is why we speak of the Lenten desert. Lent is to be
that time where we strip away those sinful and spiritually unhealthy behaviors,
and encounter God’s mercy, so that we can be free to love Him again, with our
whole heart.
For again, on Ash Wednesday, he didn’t just say “return to
me”, but “return to me, with your whole heart.” In the Gospel, Jesus repeats
that language, and takes it even further: “love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength.”
To love God with everything, to love God with total
self-abandonment, to love God utterly, completely, wholeheartedly: this is the
point of Lent. All of our Lenten
penances, all of our prayer
has the aim of freeing us from all that keeps us
from the pure love of God.
So God has lead us out into the desert, what do you still
have to let go of this Lent? What do you still have to repent of? What do you
still have to commit to?
Jesus’ invitation is powerful and life-changing. He says we shouldn’t be satisfied with Him
simply being a part of our life, he wants to be our entire life, he wants to be
the all-consuming center—the reason we get out of bed in the morning.
Let him into your mind: let him free you from thoughts of
jealousy, envy, lust, unworthiness, pride, vengeance. Allow him to strengthen
you to love as he does, to heal the sick, visit the lonely, counsel the doubtful,
rebuke the sinner, to pray to God with an undivided heart. Allow him to heal
you of your resentments, your past wounds, your grief, your guilt over past
sins, your attachments to earthly pleasures for the glory of God and salvation
of souls.
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