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carrying crosses, empowerment, enough, goals, grace, holy season, Isaiah, Jesus, Joyce Rupp, Philippians, Prayer Seeds, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality
Today is the fifth Sunday of Lent. We don’t have much more time to achieve what we projected at the beginning of these 40 days, this “holy season.” How am I doing? Sometimes it seems that I am very aware of my desire to change, to jettison the parts of me that I see as less than acceptable, as holy, or as enough for God. I read Isaiah’s message from God: See, I am doing something new!…Do you not perceive it?” and I wonder if I really understand how present God’s Spirit is, how alive and active in every breath I take. I remember how Jesus treated the woman caught in adultery and hear St. Paul speak his faith to the Philippians: Forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal…and again I move to self doubt.
As usual, however, when I turn to Joyce Rupp, I find what I need to go forward. Her Lenten reflection called Carrying Crosses* contains a petition and then a recognition of what is true and necessary for us as we strive to accept ourselves as God sees and loves us every day. I am always grateful for her ability to speak just the right words at the right time. Listen:
Expand my perception of the good things my life already holds. Decrease apprehension about not having enough, being enough, doing enough or growing enough.
Confident in your grace and daily empowerment, I give myself to you as fully as I am able at this time. As I carry the crosses that are mine, remind me often that you are always with me and never against me. I place my desire for union with you into your loving care. Amen.
Amen, indeed.
*Prayer Seeds, p.90.
Two things occur to me as I read the lectionary texts for this First Sunday of Lent. Initially, as the sky clears after a night of snow here, Genesis announces God’s promise of the covenant that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood. I muse that I haven’t seen a rainbow – that amazing sign of God’s covenant – for a very long time. It’s not that I haven’t looked, nor do I think God has had a change of mind, but it does make one wonder – in light of all the devastating floods this past year – if we are paying enough attention. Happily we now know the vastness of the world as well as the cooperation that has been manifested after each tragedy, allowing the restoration of stricken areas through generosity and teamwork.
As the curtain opens on another season of Lent and we gear up for repentance and renewal, the prophet Joel is way out ahead of us announcing God’s invitation. “Even now,” God says…”Even now,” the poet Christopher Fry writes in the play, A Sleep of Prisoners, “when wrong comes up to face us till we take the longest stride of soul we ever took…” 