Pope Benedict XVI's Lenten Reflection

I read an article this morning summing up Pope Benedict XVI's annual Lenten reflection, which he gave yesterday on Ash Wednesday.

I found one quote to be rather insightful:

"In this 'desert,' we who believe certainly have the opportunity to have a profound experience of God, who strengthens the spirit, confirms the faith, nourishes hope and inspires charity. It is an experience that makes us sharers in Christ's victory over sin and death through his sacrifice of love on the cross."

He goes on:

"But the 'desert' is also a negative aspect of the reality that surrounds us: aridity; the poverty of words of life and values; secularism and cultural materialism, which enclose people within the worldly horizons of an existence bereft of all reference to the transcendent. This is also the environment in which even heaven above us is obscured, for it is covered by the clouds of egoism, misunderstanding and deception."

I have some questions regarding the "bereft of all reference to the transcendent" regarding secularism and cultural materialism. I'm not quite sure what that means, nor am I sure you can definitively say that. Who can say whether someone is or is not bereft of all reference to the transcendent. I don't know much about Benedict's theologically influences, but I would think that Thomas Aquinas is one of them and that some notion of nature infused with grace would prevent him from speaking of existence bereft of all reference to the transcendence. Someone better schooled on these thing would have to say more at this point. I basically just wanted to raise a question. Anyways.

I did, however, find this idea of "aridity" and "poverty of of life and values" to be very insightful.

In Lent we intentionally go to the desert to have the poverty of our faith exposed, even to the point of allowing our sense or notion of the God to be clouded and hidden. To begin to experience a real sense of loss and abandonment just like Jesus did - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

There is something about Benedict's words that remind me of the Henri Nouwen quote I posted a couple of weeks ago. We face the reality of our "nothingness" and finiteness in the presence of God, and perhaps most especially in the distance and absence of God. I'm thinking of the prodigal son who leaves homes only to find himself living for scraps.

Perhaps we could say that in Lent we recognize the immensity of God's love and grace and hospitality to let His creation go and to experience dark nights of terror and abandonment. This becomes all too real, of course, on Holy Saturday, as the body of Christ lies dead in the tomb.

I like Benedict and Nouwen because they remind me of the poverty of all the games I play, that I would look at the one who suffer and died in hopes that God would raise Him from the dead and that I would have that same hope for myself as well.

Share your thoughts?

Lent and Ash Wednesday

Last year our church collaborated to create a Lenten devotional. Here are some words I wrote for the epilogue.

"Death gets the first and the last word in the season of Lent. On Ash Wednesday, the first day in Lent, we repent in sorrow of our sinfulness, recalling through the ash our own mortality. And then forty-six days later, on Holy Saturday, the last day of Lent, we are forced to deal with the reality that God was, at one point in time, dead in the person of Jesus. Lent is a sobering season, to be sure."

And if you're interested, here is one of my contributions to the devotional.

First Day of Lent

Originally published March 9, 2011

by Scott Savage

Matthew 6:1-21

“God give us love in the time that we have.” —Iron & Wine

When I was a kid a few of us had a bright idea to sneak into the youth room and play pool. Because the room was a separate structure from the main church building, we were sure no one would find us. So, upon breaking and entering, we began to play. But it wasn’t long before our imaginations soared to new heights and we realized that we could reach the ceiling with the pool cues and that with a little force we could poke holes into it. What happened next can only be described as a downward spiral of destruction and mayhem. We trashed the place.

Upon our indictment, we were arraigned, forced to come back to the church in a few weeks to repair the damage. But when we arrived, to our surprise, we found that we were not the only ones there. It seemed that the church had coincided our punishment with an all-church workday. At least we wouldn’t be alone.

There is something sobering about coming back to the scene of a crime. You feel differently about what you’ve done when you’re forced to see it in a new way. With tears and sighs, we picked up our Spackle and went to work on the millions of holes we had made.

But something happened next that I wasn’t prepared for. I looked over and saw our accusers – the judge and jury of our crimes – standing next to us, filling in the holes that we had made.

Of all the things Jesus could have highlighted after his benchmark teaching on prayer, he chose forgiveness. “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”

Lord, may we forgive one another as you have forgiven us. Amen.