LENT: A Time of Grace and Renewal (III)

Sacred Time

(Link to Part I, Part II)

But our good intentions alone are not enough to obtain this salvation. The first to make it happen is God, who comes to our aid. Of us is asked only that we have an attitude of trust and abandonment, that we surrender to his love, that we offer ourselves to his embrace by listening to his Word and by working out our conversion through the Lenten practices of fasting, alms, and prayer.

The first of the three, fasting, regards our relationship with ourselves. It has two dimensions: one, exterior, goes beyond abstaining from food to include avoiding the excessive use of certain means of communication (television, cell phones, internet…) and certain forms of entertainment, ect… A second, interior dimension is that in which our fasting becomes a “sign” of our living out the Word of God, a “sign” of our desire for purification, a “sign” of our abstaining from sin. 

Secondly, the giving of alms, closely tied to fasting, regards our relationship with others in as much as we share with our brothers that which we have. Finally, there is prayer, essentially relationship with God, an intimate and trusting dialogue that is born out of meditating on the Word, especially in community.

These activities can only be carried out on one condition: that we pass beyond the surface to the heart of the actions. Otherwise we will experience Lent as merely an exterior practice of a few extra religious signs, and not as a path of sincere conversion and profound renewal. If we lack the interior dimension, fasting becomes ostentatious hypocrisy, alms become vaunting oneself, and prayer becomes a drunkenness of empty words.

LENT: A Time of Grace and Renewal (II)

The Gift of Time

(Link to Part I)

However, the ‘challenge of time’ finds a solution within the perspective of faith. It loses its negative connotations in within categories that define it in a new way, as a ‘gift.’ Time as a ‘gift’ offers a response to man’s deepest aspirations. His longing for reconciliation, peace, forgiveness, joy, relationships and dialogue are all different sides of the same ‘need for salvation,’ a need that man is unable to fulfill on his own. Time is a gift that comes from the One who is outside of time; a gift that allows the mystery of salvation to become history and penetrate each person’s daily life, transforming that life into the story of salvation.

For Christians this mystery of salvation has its center and foundation in the life of Jesus Christ. The mysteries of his life are shared by the Church throughout the year, the ‘liturgical year.’ The various moments of the liturgical year are marked and measured by these mysteries, indeed taking their very names from them: the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and ordinary time. In this way the passing of time is no longer marked by the relentless and anonymous flow of days and events, but is filled with the sacred. It becomes a ‘space’ where the mystery is announced, carried out, celebrated and revealed in all of its beauty, a beauty that is the very same face of Christ.

In this perspective Lent is a time of ‘grace:’ a time for authentic change, for deep conversion, a time to catch one’s breath, to bring order to the confusion of life, a time for establishing real relationships and resuming interrupted conversations, a time to relish true rest… in a word: a time to receive salvation! 

[to be continued...]

fra Giovanni Nappo

Lent: A Time of Grace and Renewal (I)

The Challenge of Time

For many of us, the relentless flow of time represents a challenge, or even an unfair fight, because we can do nothing to stop it as it passes. Today “time,” as a subjective feeling, seems to flow by in a hurry. There is never enough of it, nor does one ever arrive ‘on time.’ And even the little time that we are given with which to live, we spend in anxiety. Moreover, a certain conception of time as something fragmentary, as if the uninterrupted and accelerating succession of facts, situations, people and things were completely disjointed, continues to impose itself. There is no time to stop and delve deep. One is always running, shaken and dazed beneath a constant bombardment of information. We cannot possibly take in everything, and often we content ourselves with a superficial knowledge, resigning ourselves to widely-diffused mediocrity. The only reality that unites this way of living out time is ‘change,’ understood as a value in and of itself, as if the only thing that is truly stable and certain is the fact that everything changes.

In this euphoria of change we sense the need for deep renewal, a renewal that goes beyond simple emotions, a renewal that affects our entire person, our way of feeling, thinking and acting. We long for clarity, to put our lives in order. We feel the urgency to have a time that is qualitatively ‘different,’ a moment to ‘breathe.’ The change that our society imposes on us does not satisfy our desires and our deepest needs. Rather, it serves only to fuel our lack of satisfaction and our weariness. A certain phrase often comes up in our conversations, even among us friars: “I’m tired; I can’t take it any more.” Vacations, holidays, and weekends don’t seem to be able to produce in us the desired result. Relationships become complicated, full of conflict, fake and stressful. [to be continued...] 

friar Giovanni Nappo