reflection for lent

Today’s gospel is about the raising of Lazarus, a friend whom Jesus loved, brother of the sisters Martha and Mary whom he also loved. As it becomes more addictive, higher does are needed to achieve the same result. Not the receiving of holy communion but blasphemy, the unleashing of the dark perverse of self-destruction. We ‘remember’ him as members of his mystical body and this remembering nourishes us and helps us to grow. Moses was refused entry into the Promised Land because his faith had once faltered and he had failed as a leader. We will better handle our fear and anxiety by thinking of others, making us discover that our neighbour is whoever we give our attention to. It is there the next morning and the morning after that and for as far ahead as you can see. Attention that can’t remain on an object for long enough for us to appreciate it for itself – not just for what it gives me – slackens into distraction. As I said the other day, this is not a time merely for blaming and finger-pointing, even at ourselves. It’s weird but eventually it makes some sort of sense. Philip Galgallo, Christian Aid’s country manager in Burundi, who grew up in Northern Kenya, gives a powerful reflection for the second week of Lent. Maybe there is some truth in the psychological assessment we make of others. As I am very impatient, I usually put the bigger logs on the new flames too quickly. But there’s another little ‘practice of the presence of God’ (aka mindfulness or recollection) that can both help to prepare us to meditate and is a fruit of meditation. Shared spiritual practice does not make us perfect; but it builds community. But demonising them is unfair and unreal too. Gen 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13,15-18; Rom 8:31b-34; Mark 9:2-10 Spring. We may feel, too, that it has found us because there is a sense, coming from the road itself, that we are being led by a direct, intimate connection with it. Out of his equanimity Jesus recognised the source of the temptations that he was prey to after his forty days in the desert. Faith is deepened in the tunnels of time. Mk 1:12-13). We will not approach education as something to be heated up quickly in a microwave and delivered as a qualification. Maybe after the crisis when schools and colleges open again, we will remember what patience means. Good questions at any time, especially in a Lent when life is disrupted by a pandemic. To remember this is to beat the fear of death and dying. She says his smile is the beauty of the world. They are not superhuman or supernatural but simply fully human, revealing our own actual true nature. That’s a good sense of direction to begin Lent with. Politicians were among the people who held power. He used down to earth symbols like a treasure buried in a field or a wayward younger son who comes home with his tail between his legs. The same darkness is waiting, unconsciously and impersonally, in the billions of Covid-19 virus that could fit into a space the size of this full stop. In today’s gospel Jesus cures a man born blind. In Nazareth there is a bronze plaque on the ground of Mary’s house where (believe it or not) Gabriel happened to her and she said yes. When we forget this, we forget a core element of our humanity. Lent reflections. Reflection for Lent – 2021 Simon Fernandes 2021-03-17T12:51:07+00:00. The first is a Hollywood disaster movie. It can creep up on you slyly or suddenly hit you sideways and send you into spin on a slippery road. What are we doing too much of? The birdsong was enough, the purity of the air and the lucidity of the silence. If this sounds very complex and challenging, in fact it is ridiculously simple. A very great writer also leaves a trace of the teeming mind in the order he creates, a sense of all the possible other ways in which characters and the storyline could have developed. Who can fail to be touched, moved to wonder? On one of them the Dalai Lama spoke out because of a personal connection. Mis-stepping in the dance between the inner and outer rhythms disturbs everything. He rebuked them for their lack of trust. Here, relationships with others, in God who is the common ground, converge with our self-knowledge and self-acceptance. We don’t trust. A balanced life, for example, is essential for good human development. In a way it makes death all the more final and terrible. Live as if you’ll never die’. Yama the mythical god of death in the Katha Upanishad is a teacher of humanity. Lent, A Season of Renewal. It is not linked to any particular belief system, yet we can validly talk about Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian or Buddhist meditation in a way that affirms both its universality and its diverse manifestations. For Lazarus it was a reprieve because he would die again eventually. Lets make a life inventory. Not so long-ago experts and specialists were out of fashion. She and her mother, who joined us on WhatsApp, have been transported in the few minutes that it took for their beloved father and husband to die, into a different world. (As John Main said ‘prayer is the essential ascesis of the Christian life’). We hope this for your sake and because the rest of us need the beautiful things  - of your temperament and your country - that makes us love you. While I was away, we took the difficult but necessary step of suspending the Bonnevaux retreat schedule until we see how the global health crisis unfolds. Philip Galgallo, Christian Aid’s country manager in Burundi, who grew up in Northern Kenya, gives a powerful reflection for the second week of Lent. For some of us it has already meant the death of loved ones. When Jesus calmed the storm here, he was woken up by his terrified companions who couldn’t believe how he could be asleep in such a tempest. Lent is not a time to play at being more religious but for purifying our religiousness until it better conforms to the truth about ourselves. Maybe they would be, but motivation is everything. Would you like to receive these daily Gospel reflections in your inbox every morning? We have found it. It’s like thinking that we have to do something unpleasant to make someone who already loves us continue loving us. Better be prepared and what better way than to practice dying? Long after Cana, the smile of Jesus that irradiates us in every meditation, is still human and not an empty sign. Appealing to God, from a sincere heart, to change things when they become unbearable may bring relief. The great silence. I also liked the refrain, “Done and done…and yet not done.” Thank-you. Growth out of control is cancer. This first Sunday of Lent [YEAR B], the Gospel recalls the themes of temptation, conversion and the Good News.Mark the Evangelist writes: “The Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness.And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan” (cf. He gives a piece of bread to Judas signifying that he is the one whose name will be forever cursed in history after this night. It was a letter of thanks, provocatively and intelligently written but, as one might expect from an intense young person, lacking as yet a full empathy for others who suffer. We cannot control the spread of the virus by going on warm days to crowded beaches or parks. Now or later, it is coming for all of us. It is reached at the base of the greatest subjectivity – when he knew himself totally and was about to give up his spirit to his source, ceasing to be separate in any way, and abandoning any clinging to himself. Rosary – … And, to be realistic, if we don’t have the relationships we want and need, or if we have damaged relationships, some in crisis or on life-support, we should see that these too are sacred Just because they are suffering doesn’t mean they are not sacred. The Judaean desert that Jesus knew and where John the Baptist baptised is not far from the ever-ancient modern city of Jerusalem. You can still feel the aridity and bareness which the sun would soon parch. In an un-contemplative lifestyle, where everything is done to excess and at unnecessary speed, we leap from one false certainty to another. It was physically, emotionally all too much. It becomes simple presence. You just know there is a real possibility you won’t survive. It is a funny idea that the mighty German army would have been seriously impeded by not knowing whether to turn right or left at a crossroads in the English countryside. The medium was the message. We read the story by allowing it to read us. Attention without a thought or image is pure prayer. The gift today is to determine to more deeply believe the gift of God’s love. And how we die depends upon how we approach dying. My failed attempt produced clouds of smoke that blew inwards rather than up the chimney. What is gone is gone. This is what I mean by finding a contemplative path through the crisis. Darkness is dark. The fact that Jesus was baptised by John seems to have been difficult to explain for some early Christians. This week we are living the story of the last days of Jesus. Adult survivors of child-abuse often describe a coping mechanism that they developed when the repeated abuse was about to happen again. So, let’s remember this is the second half of Lent. I rose from the dead after drawing the sting of death and loosing the bonds of hell.. for lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. They are rooted in false ideas about sin and grace and an extreme separation from the wisdom of moderation. Of course, it has many companions (up to 60,000) so, together, they may make enough to cover a piece of bread. Where is my motivation coming from? It is a season when we simplify. Close your eyes lightly. Even when pain was acute one could achieve a dignified equanimity, no thrashing around dramatically complaining about that ‘dark night’ which the romantic poet Dylan Thomas said we should not go gently into. Unless we come to insight into the meaning of our own story, we will be condemned to repeat the works of darkness until the story of our life ends. The glorious human body is prone to many afflictions and limitations. I cannot deny or rewrite the history of the grace of this connection or the good he did. Our heart breaks when we feel apart. And time is transcended by faith. Circumstances came together that made the terrible mutation we are experiencing. ‘Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.’ In times of distress, especially, these words can be fatally misinterpreted. Freedom from self-deception, freedom to love to the fullest human capacity, unflinching clarity of mind and a gentleness of heart taken to the most vulnerable degree, the humility to try again. Does it represent ordinary common humanity – physical needs, mental needs and spiritual needs? But later, as her life had begun to re-form, she told me she was still mad at him, but that she could see how it had happened and her own involvement in the circumstances behind the collapse of their relationship. It was here that Jesus walked on the water, saved Peter from drowning in his doubt and here that he cooked a fish breakfast for his friends after the Resurrection. For the first time most churches in the West are closed for public worship because of the coronavirus. We hedge our bets. But what is happening more is that we can be awakening to the infinite beauty of nature and the animal kingdom. Follow in the footsteps of Jesus with our Lent: Count your blessings meditation [VIDEO], England and Wales charity no. Whatever bad use we made of them before the virus we are now discovering how they can be a lifeline to meaning, to connection. As you will have seen from our website or other mailings you have received from the community, we will be proposing a healthy variety of resources and events from which you can select whatever you find helpful to you personally or to your family, or to a group that you may be meditating with online. How we approach that inevitability depends upon how we have lived. NI059154 and ROI charity no. The husband of a friend of mine gave her an unwelcome Christmas present one year by confessing that he had been having an affair with her best friend for the past decade. A more subtle answer that takes the spiritual dimension for real (not just as an accident of the brain) would say that all memory is stored in the deeper level of consciousness. His theme was human woundedness; and, as the more he expounded it, more people called him a saint. This becomes obvious when we say something like, ‘it’s just not normal. Our best chance of surviving is to be awake. Journey through the wilderness of Lent with sisters and brothers from Kenya and Nigeria using these six weekly reflections. As we begin Lent, let’s decide, with the simplest motivation, whether we will do something or do nothing. Opportunities can be more challenging than failures. 1105851 Scotland charity no. Petitionary and intercessory prayer are authentic forms and we need these too. reflection for THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT, MAR. Then you add kindling, small pieces of wood or cardboard. In calling forth forgiveness for his enemies’ appalling and vicious ignorance, from the ground of being, he was connecting to the source itself. When John Main, speaking about meditation as ‘pure prayer’, said that the essential asceticism of the Christian life is prayer, he was delivering an insight of great value for modern culture that brings immense relief to those who see what it means. What difference does lighting a candle make? 20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. And of course, we are learning hard and necessary lessons collectively. It initiates a long process of letting go and a transforming re-evaluation of the whole map of our life we had made. When I heard the truth, about the pattern of his sexual relations with a number of women whom he was guiding, I disbelieved it. Just misplacing your car keys can trigger a series of previous more painful losses in your life. Week 1: Lent reflections – Sunday 18 February. It is also re-formative for those who have already lost their way and fallen into dysfunctional, often self-abusive lifestyles. The World Community for Christian Meditation in the UK (UK Registered Charity no. We have to take off our shoes when we turn our attention to them: to be simple, humble and truthful. Latin, Greek, Aramaic were not the language that the Word of God was translated into in Nazareth or what exploded in the pure energy of light on the mountain. We are truly God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to lead the life of good deeds which God prepared us for in advance. It’s fairly easy to identify these in some of the small elements of our ordinary lives. Lent is a time of reflection and renewed faith as we focus on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The shock, too, is a suddenly altered sense of time. Religious status or spiritual influence in any power structure is a source of temptation. But climaxes slow down to routines of living with loss, more slow-moving, dull-ache sadness This is when we most need a path, a practice that gives hope through experiencing connection to an eternal spring of being in us. It looked up at me and emitted a pathetic mew and then resumed its search. After the first meditation this morning I had as usual twenty minutes before the second. The Author: Brian McLaughlin C.S.Sp. It is accomplished. We will all be in the same moment, paying attention together. The Contemplative Path programme website will be up online shortly. If we die as we lived, our dying is a gift, an authentic teaching in itself, to those we take leave of. 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23 | Ephesians 2:4-10 | John 3:14-21. The one in whose footsteps we are walking knew the life of a village, enjoyed the company of friends and family, went to a wedding party. If we can persevere the power of pure attention can penetrate and begin to dissolve it. But one side pointed left saying ‘Cork’ and another pointed right saying ‘Cork’. People who have an accident and are laid up in bed for an extended time say how quickly their muscles weaken. But beside the witness of a holy death this sounds embarrassingly adolescent. 23 Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. This is impossible until we feel that God actually likes us. How are the mighty fallen and how, secretly, as the media sales show, we enjoy their disgrace, their fall from grace. We would be concerned only with giving things up that we like or doing difficult things that we think would be good for us. Today, after a few days away teaching, I have back home to Bonnevaux where I will stay put for the foreseeable future.

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