Reflections on Lent ... Extract from Province Circular

The familiar story of the rich young man is instructive in that the man recognised that while he had kept all the commandments and was undoubtedly a good person, there was emptiness at his core. What he had was existence. What he was seeking was ‘life’. His problem was that he could not let go of what was binding him and what gave him his identity and meaning. He lacked freedom. He lacked depth. He was not whole.

This story sums up the gospel and our own lives too. Jesus had remarkable insight in that he could see that there was no way into the fullness and freedom of ‘life’ except through detachment. He made and still makes huge demands on those who would follow him. Leave your nets, your father’s house, let the dead bury the dead, take no money, no extra clothes, no bag. In other words, surrender for the sake of oneness with the mystery of life.

Only when we develop an inner freedom can we detach from possessions, family, occupation, ministry, profession, reputation, luxuries, ideas, practices, addictions, compulsions, certainties, success, even life itself.

The utterly brilliant St John of the Cross writes somewhere that it does not matter if a bird is tied by a cord or a thread, it is still unfree.

He specifies that some of the things to which we may have become attached could in themselves be neutral or even at one time good, but they can become for us little gods.

For John of the Cross, to be human is to be in a relationship of oneness with God. Inordinate attachments render that impossible.
Our problem can be that we tend to cling to these things, or at least some of them, because we have become accustomed to finding our meaning and identity in them, even while knowing deep down that they are shallow and illusory. We can be, in other words, slaves to our egos……condemned to illusion and separation… the antithesis of eternal life. Eternal life, with apologies to John the Evangelist, is participating in that exciting 15 billion year old oneness that carries us hope-filled in the never-ending and unconditional loving embrace of God.

We know that life can become very cluttered and noisy. Sometimes the clutter and noise is external, sometimes it is within ourselves.

Lent offers us an opportunity to come in deeper touch with our true selves. As persons of the gospel, we have nothing to offer if we do not do that. If, in our mission and ministry, we are no more than our egos, we are doing more harm than good, because while claiming to be the good news of Jesus we are in fact modelling the rich young man; a good person, but empty inside. This is not the way to freedom. This is not the reign of God.

The inner peace which results from the discipline of detachment frees us to become agents for the reign of God. We recognise that the dignity of being human is found not in the ability to control and dominate the earth but in our intimate and loving relationships within and among all creation. Imagine if transmitting this insight, by word and deed, were to became a hallmark of all our Christian Brother activities, ministries and interactions.