20150224 THE MYSTICAL DIMENSION OF THE LENTEN PROGRAM
Readings at Mass
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First reading
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Isaiah 55:10-11 ©
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Thus says the Lord: ‘As
the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return without
watering the earth, making it yield and giving growth to provide seed for the
sower and bread for the eating, so the word that goes from my mouth does not
return to me empty, without carrying out my will and succeeding in what it was
sent to do.’
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Psalm
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Psalm
33:4-7,16-19 ©
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The Lord rescues
the just in all their distress.
Glorify the Lord with
me.
Together
let us praise his name.
I sought the Lord and
he answered me;
from all
my terrors he set me free.
The Lord rescues
the just in all their distress.
Look towards him and
be radiant;
let your
faces not be abashed.
This poor man called,
the Lord heard him
and
rescued him from all his distress.
The Lord rescues
the just in all their distress.
The Lord turns his
face against the wicked
to
destroy their remembrance from the earth.
The Lord turns his
eyes to the just
and his
ears to their appeal.
The Lord rescues
the just in all their distress.
They call and the
Lord hears
and
rescues them in all their distress.
The Lord is close to
the broken-hearted;
those
whose spirit is crushed he will save.
The Lord rescues
the just in all their distress.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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Mt4:4
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Praise and honour to
you, Lord Jesus!
Man does not live on
bread alone,
but on every word
that comes from the mouth of God.
Praise and honour to
you, Lord Jesus!
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Gospel
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Matthew 6:7-15 ©
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Jesus said to his
disciples, ‘In your prayers do not babble as the pagans do, for they think that
by using many words they will make themselves heard. Do not be like them; your
Father knows what you need before you ask him. So you should pray like this:
‘Our Father in
heaven,
may your name be held
holy,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in
heaven.
Give us today our
daily bread.
And forgive us our
debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us.
And do not put us to
the test,
but save us from the
evil one.
‘Yes, if you forgive
others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours; but if you
do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.’
THE
MYSTICAL DIMENSION OF THE LENTEN PROGRAM
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: ISA 55:10-11; MT 6:7-15
The
readings in the first four days of Lent after Ash Wednesday throws up the main
themes and focus of the Lenten program, namely, the Lenten program, the theme
of new life, fasting and repentance. Yesterday, the gospel picked up the
theme of almsgiving, which is one of the pillars of the Lenten program.
But fasting and almsgiving, which we dealt with in the readings on the Friday
after Ash Wednesday, are concerned with the ascetical dimension of the Lenten
program. Today, the liturgy directs us to the mystical aspect of the Lenten
orientation. This is because a strong spiritual and prayer life is
indispensable for genuine conversion, which is intrinsic to the renewal of our
baptismal commitments.
For
this goal to be experienced and lived, the liturgy gives us the basic elements
of an effective spiritual and prayer life. An authentic prayer life
involves three elements, namely, listening to the Word of God attentively,
praying with the mind and heart of Jesus, and removing all sins and obstacles
in our lives by forgiving and seeking forgiveness. It must be noted that these
three elements of spiritual life are intimately linked with each other that one
cannot stand without the other. They are mutually complementary to each
other.
In the
first place, there is no way to listen to the Word of God in an
efficacious manner unless there is sincerity in seeking forgiveness in
our hearts and the readiness to forgive others. If our
heart is full of resentment and bitterness and sin, we will not be open
sufficiently to hear His Word because we fear that we might have to change and
the Word would be too hard for us to accept. So instead of accepting the
Word of God in its full value, we try to rationalize and water down the truths
presented to us by the Word. We then deceive ourselves by reading the
Word of God in such a way as to soothe our conscience but with no real
intention to convert. We avoid the difficult passages or try to explain
them away so that the Word of God can fit into our lifestyles rather than we fit
into the lifestyle offered to us by Jesus. By manipulating the text to
suit our convenience, we cannot expect any real reception to the new life given
to us by Christ. For this reason, forgiveness, which also implies
the desire to remove all obstacles of sin, lies primarily in listening to the
Word of God in its entirety without compromise.
However,
even if we have heard the Word in its full meaning without any defenses and
taken the Word of God as truth, it is still not effective unless we pray
what we have heard. If not, what we reflect on will remain in our
heads and forgotten the moment we surface from our meditation. Rather we
must transform our thoughts and insights into earnest prayer, appropriating
what we have heard into a sincere desire to change and to live out the
challenges offered to us. So unless the heart and the will appropriate
the ideas, there can be no conversion as well.
Secondly,
we are told in the gospel that effective prayer is intimately linked
with the Word of God and forgiveness. Unless we have heard the Word of
God, we will not realize that God is divine providence and love. Then we
will pray like the pagans “for they think that by using many words they will
make themselves heard.” Rather, we are reminded that our heavenly Father
knows what we need even before we ask Him. What is more essential,
according to Jesus, is to pray with the mind of his Father. Necessarily,
this requires us to pray in His name.
However,
this presupposes that we have heard the Word of God. If the first
reading speaks about the efficacy of the Word of God in our lives, it is
because it precludes that we have truly heard the Word not in our minds only
but in our hearts. This union with the will and mind of God is
beautifully summed up in the Lord’s Prayer. What is significant to note
is that Jesus taught us to pray specifically for our daily bread, which is not
just about our temporal needs but the bread which is the Word of God, the manna
from heaven. Thus, we must pray in such a way that our prayer expresses
the Word of God itself. Indeed, the Lord’s Prayer is called the Pattern
of all prayers because it is a prayer that sums up the whole revelation of who
God is for us and what He desires for us. As such the Lord’s Prayer is an
eschatological prayer for the coming of the Kingdom. Hence, Jesus gave
the Lord’s Prayer to His disciples as the motto by which they sustained their
hope for the realization of God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven.
From
this perspective flows the implication of calling God our Father. For if we see
God as our Father, then Jesus as our brother. This means that we are brothers
and sisters of the same Father. That being the case, we must then
live like brothers and sisters, forgiving each other in His name, just as He readily
forgives us because we are His children. If our Father forgives our
fellow brothers and sisters who sinned against us, we who claim to love Him so
totally would surely not want to sadden Him by continuing to hold grudges
against one of His children. Hence, an authentic prayer must be truly a
biblical and Christocentric prayer.
Hence,
effective prayer presupposes that we forgive and pray with a good and clear
conscience. The failure to forgive will block our ability to pray
effectively as our hearts and minds are close to God’s will. This
explains why Jesus remarked that “if you forgive others their failings, your
heavenly Father will forgive you yours; but if you do not forgive others, your
Father will not forgive your failings either.” This must not be misunderstood
as if the Father would not forgive our failings if we do not forgive
others. On the contrary, this is spoken from our perspective of God’s
love and mercy. The point is that if we do not forgive others, then we
cannot receive God’s forgiveness since our hearts are too hardened to
understand the mercy and love of God.
Thirdly,
forgiveness is also linked to the Word of God and prayer. It is
impossible to remove the blocks in our lives unless we hear the Word.
Only by hearing the Word, can we be enlightened and be convinced to at least
see the logic and the benefits of forgiveness. So hearing the Word
presupposes forgiveness. Without hearing the Word of God, we will never
understand the love and mercy of God for us. Only when we know that God
loves us so much in Jesus, can we be inspired to forgive like Him.
But
even if we are convinced of the truth of His love for us, we still will not be
able to forgive unless we pray. Only prayer can change the hearts
and minds of man. Only in prayer, in our intimate relationship with the Lord,
touched by His heart and love, can we find the strength to forgive.
Prayer therefore connects us with the heart of God, the hearts of man and our
own brokenness. Prayer is a perquisite to liberating ourselves from our
slavery to our sins and passions.
The end
result of listening to the Word, praying and forgiving is that we will
experience the love and power of God working in our lives in a real and
concrete way. We will be transformed in our relationship with God, towards
others and ourselves. As we are transformed, so, too, will the situation around
us change. The unconditional love and power of God will be felt in our
lives, bringing about positive effects on others. As we become more like
Christ, which is what Lent is all about; we will renew our lives in Christ by
renewing our baptismal commitments.
Indeed,
this would be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision. Through him God avowed
that “the word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying
out my will and succeeding in what it was sent to do.” Yes, we are transformed
by the Word through effective prayer, the removal of all sins and obstacles in
our lives. This, then, is the mystical perspective of the Lenten
program as it truly inserts us into the life of Christ, which is the paschal
mystery.
WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV
WILLIAM GOH
ARCHBISHOP
OF SINGAPORE
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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