Maybe it is good for us to resituate ourselves in this Lenten Season.The whole move of the season is, of course, toward the great celebration of the Paschal Mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ.It is, then, moving with Jesus’ own going up to Jerusalem, the celebration of the Paschal Feast with his apostles, the agony and suffering, his death and rising from the dead three days later.This is the direction we are moving
More proximately, we are moving toward the celebration of the Sacrament of Baptism at the Easter Vigil, when the catechumens are reborn in that sacrament and the rest of us renew our baptismal vows.
Sacraments are the intersection of the past event with our living present.Sacraments certainly are no mere ceremonies, but events and encounters—happenings, you might say—in which the mystery of God’s saving plan in made present and active for us in the moment of their celebration.Baptism is then our being taken into, submerged is better, the movement of Christ’s passing from death to life with the Father, resurrection!
From the earliest days of this new movement called Christianity, baptism has been referred to as an enlightenment.Baptism is the place of enlightenment because it is the place where faith is given to us.Faith is, as we have already said, the gift of new vision, a new mind, a new ‘take on life.’
And make no mistake about it, this comes as grace; that is, it comes as complete and unmerited gift.It comes to us as something we simply can not create for ourselves.I am simply not capable on my own of ‘looking at things more positively.’ This is at least hinted at in the readings for today’s liturgy.In the first (Jeremiah 7:23-28), God says through the prophet that there really is only one thing he has asked of his people, that is to listen to his voice.And yet, as the rest of the reading makes so clear, their minds are so dark, their hearts so hard, they simply are not capable of it.The gospel (Lk 11:14-23) shows the crowd to be so obstinate toward Christ that they see only the work of Beelzebul in the work of liberty and new life communicated by him.In other words, they see death where there is life.In the first reading, the people are incapable of hearing the voice of God.In the gospel, they are unable to see the presence of God in their midst.
Baptism opens to us a way to hear God’s voice and to see his action alive in our midst.
Yet, again, as the readings make so clear, this is a work from the inside out.The incapacity to hear, to see is inside—hard hearts and evil thoughts.Because this is so shows precisely why we do not simply mark Ash Wednesday and then the following Sunday celebrate the feast of Easter.We simply need the journey.We need the time, space, and action of prayer, fasting and almsgiving in order to ‘walk with Christ’ on the way ‘up to Jerusalem.’The journey ‘up to Jerusalem’, made with those three Lenten practices, serve to soften our hearts and attune our ears to perceive the Father acting in his Son for love of us drawing us to life.
It might be good at this stage of Lent to ask how it is going.Have I lost a bit of steam?Have I let the hardness of my own heart, the opaqueness of my mind discourage me to give up on the journey?
Again, seeing and hearing God comes as grace!The journey, the Lenten practices we do, are simply about putting us in the ‘place of grace.’The persistence of the darkness of mind and heart should not surprise us or prevent us from taking the journey.In fact, they are the very reason for the journey.How much I need Easter!How much I need to be caught up with Jesus in his great Passing to the Father!
Let’s get there!Let’s keep moving!We simply have to get there! Let us get to that place of grace!