We're Halfway Through Lent and the Lord Brings a Spark of Hope.
A reflection on the Fourth Sunday of Lent by Sandy DeTeresa
This week's readings bring me so much hope while calling me out at the same time! We are halfway through Lent, and I don't know about you, but this has been a very Lenty Lent if you ask me. Keeping up with my Lenten resolutions has been difficult, charity and patience both with myself and others have been hard. I’ve found loopholes and excuses to do the easier, less Lenty or holy thing for numerous reasons. I have not blessed the Lord at all times or sought His will in every moment as the psalmist sings today. And all of this weighs on me. Which, as a perfectionist who hates admitting when I fail, causes me to avoid the Lord more and more…
Then, I read the first reading and long for the first fruits of the promised land. I am honestly a little jealous of the Israelites who no longer have to eat the manna because they can eat the produce of the land; that sounds like such a relief! They are out of the desert, in the land that was promised to them, enjoying it. I want to be out of the desert and in the promised land too!
So I quickly skip ahead and read the psalm, looking for a little less jealousy and discomfort and a little more justification that I’m not in such a funk and everything is fine. Annnnnd (thanks to God’s mercy and refusal to leave me in my funk) I am reminded in the psalm to seek the Lord who alone can deliver me from this mid-Lent funk. All of a sudden, hope is sparked in my weary heart. I begin to desire to “look to him that [I] may be radiant with joy, and [my face] may not blush with shame” (verse 6). I begin to see my poverty and acknowledge that I am “the poor one” and my heart leaps a bit with the promise that “when the poor one called out, the LORD heard, and from all his distress he saved him” (verse 7). But then the doubt and laziness that have accompanied my desolation and discouragement funk creep in. Is it really that easy? I think to myself. All I have to do is look to Him?? It has been pretty difficult to try and climb out of this (what I think is) desolation…
BUT things begin to look up as I read the second reading. St. Paul assures us that “whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” My heart takes another drink of this water of hope in the desert of Lent I find myself in. Even in this very funky moment, can these old things pass away and new things come? St. Paul then goes on to encourage the Corinthians (and us) to be reconciled to God. But before he implores us in verse 20 to be reconciled, he sets the stage for how easy this is by reminding us that “all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ.” His request (or command) to be reconciled is so simple! God is the one who reconciles us to Himself, we simply have to be reconciled. Okay, okay, this might not be as hard as I thought, but I still have my doubts; besides how do you just BE reconciled. My very stubborn self thinks.
And then, AND THEN, I read the Gospel (thanks for that, Jesus). *Cue nervous laughter.* I begin to read the story of the prodigal son, relating a bit too well for my comfort to the son who squanders his inheritance and the feeling "when he had freely spent everything...he found himself in dire need." I see myself in the wayward son, having freely spent everything, having given away the time the Lord has given me thus far this Lent to distraction, discouragement, and excuses. I, too, am in dire need. I, too, have looked for ways to get myself out of this funk just as he searched for work to ease his needs. I think back to my times of consolation and of the holy examples in my life who even in this desert “have enough food to eat” and I desire to return to my Father.
So, like the son, as he planned out how he was going to earn his way back to his father, I begin to plan all of the ways to get out of this dryness I find myself in. I determine to do a daily holy hour, read a bunch of spiritual books, pray many prayers each day, wake up early, be more patient, etc., etc. all to get right with the Lord. And with a similar hope of reconciliation, I make my way back to my Father's house, ready for the grueling effort it is going to take to earn my way back to being His child after being distracted by the world. Because that’s what it’s going to take to earn my place as His daughter: a lot of work.
And then, as I continue reading, I am surprised just as the son is. As the son reaches his father's house, the father never even gives him a chance to execute his plan of redemption. Before the son even reaches his father, the father runs to his son in compassion and embraces him. The son is so shocked (as I so often am by the mercy with which the Father meets me) that he still says (likely in a state of bewilderment and shame) "Father I have sinned against you, I no longer deserve to be called your son." And his father doesn't even acknowledge it. Why? Because no matter what, he was, is, and always will be his father's son. Nothing, no sin, no offense, can change that. The father has been waiting, scanning the horizon for his son, waiting for him to repent and return. And he rejoices in his son, he holds nothing of his past against him. Just the act of the beloved son returning and acknowledging his sin is enough to move the father’s heart to forgiveness. The father celebrates the return of the son. The son's redemption is not earned but given, all the son has to do is repent and receive it.
That’s when it hits me, my redemption is not earned but given to me by the Father. So I decide to turn back and seek the Father: I ask a priest for confession; I ask the Father for mercy. I approach the Lord with all of my failings weighing me down, prepared not only to list my failures but to present my plan on how to make it up to Him and earn my redemption, and instead, the Father immediately runs to me in compassion with forgiveness waiting for me. The priest doesn’t shame me for my failures, he doesn’t wait for my list of ways I am going to earn my forgiveness, he just speaks and acts forgiveness into being. I receive the words of absolution spoken on behalf of the Father by my spiritual father. I am reconciled.
It is such a relief, the weight of my sin, the burden of my failures never erased the fact that I am a beloved daughter of the Father! In fact, the opposite happens, the fact that I am a beloved daughter is why God sent His son for me and why He waits there for me to return every time I walk away to forgive me fully. Just like the prodigal son, the very second I return to Him, He robes me in the finest robes and celebrates my return with such joy! No redemption checklist is needed, just repentance and return.
As we enter this last half of Lent and prepare to enter into the Paschal mystery, let's check in with ourselves not only with our to-dos but especially with our relationship with the Lord. Are we avoiding the Lord in our failures acting like the wayward son who is in dire need? Then, let us return with our whole heart to the Father who scans the horizon for our return and longs to embrace us. Let us receive the redemption He freely gives.