Lenten Lighthouse

 

---

First Lenten Lighthouse – The Present Moment

 
Today’s Gospel (Mark 1/12-15): “Repent and believe in the Good News.”
= Present tense: (Not: Have you repented and believed. (Past)
                               (Not: Will you repent and believe. (Future)

We live out the Gospel as Disciples in the PRESENT MOMENT
=”Kairos”= favourable time

Alcohol Anonymous helpfully says (Quoting others):
“Leave the PAST to HISTORY
Leave the FUTURE to MYSTERY
The PRESENT is GIFT.”

Christianity calls the PRESENT a kind of “SACRAMENT” (…of the Present Moment)In other words, we surrender totally to the Holy Spirit in the present moment and wait in hope for GRACE.So many Christians struggle with this…living in the terrors/mistakes of the past…the fears of the future.

The God of the “I AM” (Popular Reflection)
“I was regretting the past and fearing the future, suddenly my Lord was speaking: “My name is I AM.”
God paused.  I waited.  God continued.
When you live in the past, with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard – I am not there.  My name is not “I WAS.”
When you live in the future with its problems and fears.
It is hard – I am not there.  My name is not “I WILL BE.”
When you live in this present moment, it is not hard.
I am here.  My name is “I AM”

The first Lenten lighthouse is therefore: THE PRESENT MOMENT – START BY LIVING IN CHRIST THE PRESENT MOMENT DEEPLY.

---

 

Second Lenten Lighthouse  – The Wilderness

 

• This 2^nd lighthouse is more difficult for us in our success-driven competitive world.
• But Christianity began and continues to bloom at the foot of CALVARY – In all its mess, tragedy and forsakenness.
• There are two eternally blooming Christian truths at the foot of Calvary. Live deeply in these truths: I/we are sinner(s) and God is merciful Love/Kindness.
• Live these out in the WILDERNESS of Lent by PRAYER – FASTING – ALMSGIVING

A Word About Sin

London Times Competition.  G K Chesterton (English Writer, Philosopher, Convert – 1874-1936) won!
Newspaper Question: What is wrong with the world?
Chesterton’s Answer: “I AM.”

Fundamental Biblical Definition of Sin: ACTING AS IF GOD DOES NOT EXIST.

Going to Confession? – Answer this statement in your own life.  Areas? Confess these areas with sincere contriteness.

A Word About The Merciful Forgiveness Of Jesus 

His loving mercy surrounds us ALWAYS.

Eg. Two fish swimming in the ocean.
One was particularly busy going around to rocks and underwater grasses…
The other asked: “What are you looking for?”
The mate answered: “Water! Someone said there is water down here!”

PRAYER = “Floating in the ocean of God’s love.”  (God’s love surrounds us like an ocean)

Too many Christians – are aware of their sins but doubt God’s forgiving mercy.
AND
Too many Christians – are aware of God’s merciful love but seem to have no real ‘sense of sin.’

The Second Lenten lighthouse for our evangelising outreach (especially in this “Year of the Holy Spirit”) is not only regarding Baptising the unconverted (R.C.I.A.) but also converting the Baptised…us!!
First Reading (Water Covenant – NOAH)
Second Reading (NOAH-BAPTISM)

 

---

Third Lenten Lighthouse – “wonderful”

 

CHALLENGE: Start with our ultimate future destiny in Christ (= The Beatific Vision/Heaven) and work backwards to the present moment.

1. Experience of the 3 Apostles at the Transfiguration.

• St Peter describes it as “WONDERFUL” (Glimpse of full future communion with the Divine)
• “Whiteness” (“dazzlingly white”) Belonging to the heavenly realm.
• “Down” the mountain – but now with HOPE/JOY for the suffering ahead (suffering Jesus) after this glimpse of future Resurrected Glory.

2. Our own Catholic Tradition also offers us a glimpse of future glory in our ancient Tradition (Beatific Vision/Heaven)

• Catechism of the Catholic Church(C.C.C.)
  “Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfilment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness.” (CCC 1024)
  “Those who die in grace and friendship see him as he is, face to face.” (CCC 1023)
  “The Church calls this contemplation of God in his heavenly glory the Beatific Vision.” (CCC1028)

3. This future Beatific Vision gives us hope/strength for the present challenges in life (looking backwards).

HOWEVER

• Never take SALVATION for granted – CONTINUOUS CONVERSION NEEDED.
  (eg. Funerals are not a kind of Canonisation ceremony.)
  Prayers of Mercy for the dead – Rest in peace.

• Jesus takes the way we have lived out our freedom in life seriously – Asking for FORGIVENESS. (eg. Purgatory/Hell – God’s Mercy.)
• Our salvation is inextricably linked with our practical charity to anyone in need. (eg. “You did it to me.”)

 

---

Fourth Lenten Lighthouse – “Only Jesus”

 

• Whereas the ‘3^rd Lighthouse’ is somewhat abstract, this 4^th Lighthouse focuses on the ENCOUNTER/EXPERIENCE of the Risen Jesus in our lives through the HOLY SPIRIT – Recall, The Year of the Holy Spirit = Encounter, Discipleship, Mission.
• When all the “glitz” of the TRANSFIGURATION had ended the 3 Disciples were left in the PRESENT MOMENT with –    “ONLY JESUS.” 
• The words from the CLOUD (God) “L.I.S.T.E.N” (L.I.S.T.E.N = S.I.L.E.N.T)

   «——–»

CHALENGE:  Silently listening to the voice of God deep within us during LENT (Helped by prayer/fasting/almsgiving).  Do we truly believe in this present moment that JESUS is enough for me/us?  That ONLY JESUS will suffice?

LET US FIND COURAGE TO SAY “Jesus you are my enough” from the SAINTS:   For example…

• St Paul: Jesus “is all and is in all” (Colossians 3/11)
• St Catherine of Siena (Italian Mystic, 1347-1380 Doctor of the Church)

“You are a mystery as deep as the sea: the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for you…your Holy Spirit has given me the desire to love you.”  (From the “Dialogue on Divine Providence”)

• St Mary of the Cross MacKillop (1842-1909)

2 years before her death, she wrote: “When storms rage, when persecutions or dangers threaten, I quickly creep into the Sacred Heart’s deep abyss, and securely sheltered there, my soul is in peace, though my body is tossed upon the stormy waves of a cold and selfish world.”

In this LENT let us more deeply surrender into the forgiving and merciful arms of Jesus and say with Pope Francis (Evangelii Gaudium, 2013, n.3) this surrender prayer: “Lord I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love.  Yet, here I am once more, to renew my Covenant with you.  I need you.  Save me once again, Lord.  Take me once more into your redeeming embrace.”

“Gospill”: Jesus is my enough.

 

---

Fifth Lenten Lighthouse – “My Fathers House”

 
THE SITUATION:         Turning “the Father’s House” into a market place…” STOP!”

Is Jesus the centre of our worship or have other “SEPARATE” priorities taken precedence and confused our living out of our Baptismal promises.  Let LENT purify us all.

FOR EXAMPLE:

1. Helpful separation.

 Praise for the Portugal Marian Shrine of FATIMA.  (World Youth Day 2022)

• Clearly separating Devotion from Devotional Shops.
• In our homes? Can we separate domestic activity and prayer room?

2. Exaggerated Separation.

• Movie Star: “I am not religious BUT I have a deep yearning inside myself.”

Yet, “yearning” and “religious” instinct are inseparable! (…I am human therefore, I am religious) (Really, “I do not align myself with irrelevant Church organisations and seek illumination of my own resources.)

• If you expel Church structures, what are you left with?
• Religious instinct is SOCIAL (so difficult to believe)
• It can be eclectic and expensive – Dangers.
• Cherry picking various favoured, mainly oriental religions.
• Buying copious supplies of self-help “religious” materials on self-fulfilment philosophies (books, videos, objects). Astrology: signs of the Zodiac (predetermined future—attack on human freedom).

 

---

Sixth Lenten Lighthouse – “The Sanctuary”

 
GOSPEL COMMENTARY – “(Jesus) was speaking about the sanctuary that was his body.”

• Yet, (as above) the Church is often seen as irrelevant (secularism)/ Sinful (sex abuse) – no longer “fit for purpose.”
• 2 points: The Church is perpetually reforming herself (eg. Synodally)

    The Church is made up of sinful yet forgiven people.

QUOTES

• “It is not suffering for the Church that bothers me, it’s suffering from her.” (Irish Catholic)
• Advice of one new Catholic to another even newer Catholic: (RCIA)

“Congratulations but get ready.  It’s a rather untidy outfit you’re joining up with.”

• The Italian and popular Catholic religious writer of a generation ago, CARLO CARRETTO, wrote: in his autobiography, (1984).

“How much I criticize you, my Church, and yet how much I love you.

You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe more to you than to anyone.

You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness.

Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face, and yet, every night I have prayed that I might die in your arms…”

REFLECTION

• Let’s be patient with the Church.

No use inventing another.

As soon as we join, it would be defective because they happen to be our many defects too.

• “What could I know of Jesus without her?” (Church)

(Major Church theologian of Vatican II.  French, Henri de Lubac.)

• The Church – The Crucified and Risen Body of Jesus is our SANCTUARY. Forever!

“Gospill”:  I am her (the Church)

 And she (the Church) is me!

---

Seventh Lenten Lighthouse – “So Much”

 

THIS WEEK (John 3/14 – 21 – LAETARE (Rejoice) SUNDAY)

“…God loved the world so much that he gave his only son.” (v.16)  

(Also, First Reading: “God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy.” (Ephesians 2/4)

• On this Laetare Sunday, the scriptures “shout out” that God loves us with

so much love and mercy in sending us Jesus – his life, death, resurrection – Easter.

• In this Lent, let us reflect on this so much love = a summary of the entire Gospels. – Let it be “lifted up.”

 

e.g. ARMS OUTSTRETCHED.

Recall asking Primary School children how much Jesus loves us.  Finally, a little girl stretched out her arms as far as she could whilst standing and said “This much.”

She did not realise it, but she was making a profound theological statement.

Her body was like the crucified body of Jesus on the Calvary Cross – stretched out in crucified love. – “…he gave his only son.”

Lest this example seems a little sentimental, perhaps another example can illustrate so much of God’s love, too.

e.g. “I LOVE YOU.”

• Mother (St.) Teresa of Calcutta with some of her sisters approach a man near death on the streets of Calcutta. The sisters sit him up.  Only then do they realise the appalling state he is in.  His back is filled with vermin crawling over him.  The sisters are repulsed and move away.  Only Mother Teresa remains with the dying man.
• She tends to him lovingly. He asks, “Why are you doing this?”
• She answers: “Because I love you.”
• “Love me, I have never met you before.”
• “God is love. His son lives in us.  He lives in you and I love Jesus.”
• “Then…I love Jesus too!”

This surely is the evangelising love that is so much that it reaches even beyond death.

---

Eighth Lenten Lighthouse – Light And Darkness

 

• As suggested in today’s Gospel, Conversion and Repentance in Lent is a MOVEMENT AWAY FROM DARKNESS (sin) and a

MOVEMNT TOWARD LIGHT (mercy/forgiveness of God)

• The purpose of LIGHTHOUSES is to give off strong light in the darkness of treacherous shorelines at night so to prevent shipwrecks.
• The Gospel observes the tragedy of our humanity. Extraordinarily, we “prefer darkness to the light.”
• Lent is a time to correct, with Jesus’ mercy, our “human compass.”

This too, needs our scrutiny and repentance.  (“Greyness” is the acceptance of half-truths.)

TWO EXAMPLES FROM OUR SHARED LIFE IN AUSTRALIA:

e.g. ABORIGINAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.

• Acknowledgement of country before events is found everywhere these days.
• It is good but too easily “lets us off the hook” of corporate responsibility.
• We tend to think by acknowledging county (usually using a mantra expression) we’ve “done our bit for the Aborigines.”
• Yet, this week, in the CLOSING THE GAP annual report, we find we are falling behind in efforts to reduce aboriginal disadvantage on most indicators in our shared Australian life.
• There is GREYNESS here. Accepting half-truths (Acknowledgement) is not enough.

e.g. ENVIRONMENTAL ECOLOGY – INTEGRAL ECOLOGY.

• We are certainly making progress on our attention to environmental (health) ecology. This is good (enlightening!)
• Delighted to see in our Archdiocese the growth of the LAUDATO SI TASKFORCE.
• Yet this week France has made Abortion a constitutional right for the French!
• Ecology must not just be for the environment but also for the family, married life and the child within the womb. It is to be an integral ecology, as Pope Francis describes it.  Otherwise we are locked in a greyness that overlooks the ones without a voice.

 

“Gospill”:  “So Much.”