WE are on the 39th day of the Lenten season.
Dear friends,
This is a personal sharing:
Tomorrow we celebrate the Palm Sunday, thus entering into the HOLY WEEK.
Let me share with you some exploratory questions and reflections which have helped me to evaluate my involvement in this season of Lent...
The Spirit of God has been generous with His indwelling presence in us and among us...
He has been accompanying us with innumerable inspirations to get out of our lethargy and prompting us to move from good to better...
Where am I now?
Let me stop for a few moments and ask myself a few searching questions:
Did I take the Lenten season seriously?
Can I claim that I have been purified by this season of penance and reconciliation?
What did I do in concrete terms to help my brothers and sisters who are "less privileged" than I am now? Did I go out of my way to say a "Hello" of recognition and compassion?
When I gave some money to help the poor, did it deprive me of something which I needed badly? If it did, thank God! My alms-giving has touched my being.
I did give something to the poor. But I do not feel that I have in any genuine way been deprived of any essential item that I need in my day-to-day life.
Well, the Spirit of the Lord tells me: "There is still time to go in for such "giving of self"? The sort of giving that pains you is a real experience of penance.
The word "penance" comes from the Latin word "Poena", and it means "penalty" or "punishment". We should not take these words in the negative sense. When we relate the words penance and alms-giving with the season of Lent they have to have that purifying effect.
Is my relationship with the Triune God so distant that I am still wondering about His redemptive love for me and others? Do I have some grudges, questions about Him and about His love? Yes, I realize that I have and they are cutting into my very being. But I also realize that God has been extraordinarily good to me. Well, it may sound like contradiction. But in spiritual life, these apparent contradictions are solved at the higher realms of trust in God and surrender to God. God can take the so-called contradictions in my life and transform them into His channels of grace and compassion. My faith tells me that this process is taking place within me. O God! You are inscrutable! Who can fathom your Depths? I surrender to You, O Lord of Compassion and Love.
Did I receive the sacrament of reconciliation with faith and fervor? Yes, I did when my spiritual instinct told me that needed purification.
How do I feel with regard to my interpersonal relationships? Do I feel at ease with every one in my family, community and the circle of friends?
Are there signs of tension, "hic-ups", in my interactions with others?
I realize that there are tensions in me with regard to these questions. But I can say that they are more in the emotional level and not in the sense that I do not want to for forgive. I have taken these experience to the Lord a number of times and have asked the Lord to heal me of these.
But alas! They raise their ugly heads every now and then and I do realize that I really stand in need of healing.
If we want to enter into an experience of peace and reconciliation, we have first to accept our strengths and weaknesses and take them to the Lord in prayer and consciously surrender them into His hands.
"What a friend we have in Jesus!
All our sins and griefs to bear.
Have we trials and temptations
Is there trouble anywhere ?
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer."
If and when we reach this stage, we are well on the way to deeper experience of the mysteries of Christ that we will be called upon to participate during the Holy Week.
May we experience the Lord's redemptive love during the Holy Week!
Amen! Come Lord Jesus!
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