March 28, 2015 Saturday: 5th Week in Lent B
A Lenten Pilgrimage
March 28, 2015 Saturday: 5th Week in Lent B
We need some quiet time to pray and be alone with God. Without a “desert experience” our faith becomes superficial, our courage sporadic and our love fragile. Noise and distraction constantly surround us; we can actually forget what life is all about and we can lose our contact with God.
Solitude and prayer have a way of restoring perspective and renewing depth. Silence and solitude provide the atmosphere in which we can recall everything that the Lord has done for us in the past and experience all that He is doing for us now. “God is good all the time.” For many of us this dessert time or solace of solitude can be understood only in a metaphorical sense because many of us have all kinds of responsibilities and mundane concerns.
But precisely because we have so many responsibilities and mundane concerns, a desert time is crucially important. Is it not possible for us to individually work out a personal Holy Week’s Schedule?
The ascetic Thomas Merton wrote in New Seeds of Contemplation, “Let there be place somewhere in which you can breathe naturally, quietly and not have to take your breath in continuous short gasps; a place where your mind can be idle and forget its concerns and descend into silence and worship the Father in secret.”
I remember the philosopher Socrates who said: “An unreflected life is not worth living.” (Fr. Louie Punzalan, SVD Bible Diary 2002)
March 28, 2015 Saturday: 5th Week in Lent B
We need some quiet time to pray and be alone with God. Without a “desert experience” our faith becomes superficial, our courage sporadic and our love fragile. Noise and distraction constantly surround us; we can actually forget what life is all about and we can lose our contact with God.
Solitude and prayer have a way of restoring perspective and renewing depth. Silence and solitude provide the atmosphere in which we can recall everything that the Lord has done for us in the past and experience all that He is doing for us now. “God is good all the time.” For many of us this dessert time or solace of solitude can be understood only in a metaphorical sense because many of us have all kinds of responsibilities and mundane concerns.
But precisely because we have so many responsibilities and mundane concerns, a desert time is crucially important. Is it not possible for us to individually work out a personal Holy Week’s Schedule?
The ascetic Thomas Merton wrote in New Seeds of Contemplation, “Let there be place somewhere in which you can breathe naturally, quietly and not have to take your breath in continuous short gasps; a place where your mind can be idle and forget its concerns and descend into silence and worship the Father in secret.”
I remember the philosopher Socrates who said: “An unreflected life is not worth living.” (Fr. Louie Punzalan, SVD Bible Diary 2002)
