[stephenkhoo]

THE MYSTICAL DIMENSION OF THE LENTEN PROGRAM
SCRIPTURE READINGS: ISA 55:10-11; MT 6:7-15
http://www.universalis.com/20140311/mass.htm

The first four days of Lent after Ash Wednesday is like an orientation to the whole season of Lent. It gives us the main themes and focuses of the Lenten program, namely, new life, fasting and repentance. The following weeks of Lent is then divided into two main themes. In the first three weeks of Lent, the liturgy focuses on some aspects of spiritual life, as they are important for conversion and growth. Only in the second half of the Lenten Season, that is, the last two weeks of Lent followed by Holy Week, does the passion theme become more prominent.

Within this context, we can therefore reflect on today’s liturgy. If we still can remember, fasting, which is the foundation of almsgiving and prayer has already been dealt with on Friday after Ash Wednesday. Yesterday, the gospel picked up the theme of almsgiving, which is one of the pillars of the Lenten program. But fasting and almsgiving are concerned with the ascetical dimension of the Lenten program. Today, the liturgy directs us to the mystical aspect of the Lenten orientation. This is because a strong spiritual and prayer life is indispensable for genuine conversion, which is intrinsic to the renewal of our baptismal commitments.

For this goal to be experienced and lived, the liturgy gives us the basic elements of an effective spiritual and prayer life. An authentic prayer life involves three elements, namely, listening to the Word of God attentively, and praying with the mind and heart of Jesus; and removing all sins and obstacles in our lives by forgiving and seeking forgiveness. It must be noted that these three elements of spiritual life are intimately linked with each other that one cannot stand without the other. They are mutually complementary to each other.

In the first place, there is no way to listen to the Word of God in an efficacious manner unless there is sincerity to seek forgiveness in our hearts and the readiness to forgive others. If our heart is full of resentment and bitterness and sin, we will not be open sufficiently to hear His Word because we fear that we might have to change and the Word would be too hard for us to accept. So instead of accepting the Word of God in its full value, we try to rationalize and water down the truths presented to us by the Word. We would then deceive ourselves by reading the Word of God in such a way as to soothe our conscience but with no real intention for conversion. We will avoid the difficult passages or try to explain them away so that the Word of God can fit into our lifestyles rather than we fit into the lifestyle offered to us by Jesus. By manipulating the text to suit our convenience, we cannot expect any real reception to the new life given to us by Christ. For this reason, forgiveness, which also implies the desire to remove all obstacles of sin, is rooted primarily in listening to the Word of God in its entirety without compromise.

However, even if we have heard the Word in its full meaning, without any defenses and taking the Word of God as truth, it is still not effective unless we pray what we have heard. If not, what we reflect about remains in our heads and we forget the moment we are outside of meditation. Rather, we must transform our thoughts and insights into earnest prayer, appropriating what we have heard into a sincere desire to change and to live out the challenges offered to us. So unless the heart and the will appropriate the ideas, there can be no conversion as well.

Secondly, effective prayer is intimately linked with the Word of God and forgiveness. Unless we have heard the Word of God, we will not realize that God is divine providence and love. If not then we will pray like the pagans “for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard.” Rather, we are reminded that our heavenly Father knows what we need even before we ask Him. What is more essential, according to Jesus, is to pray with the mind of His Father. Necessarily, this requires us to pray in His name.

However, this presupposes that we have heard the Word of God. The first reading spoke about the efficacy of the Word of God in our lives; it presumes that we have truly heard the Word not only in our minds but in our hearts as well. This union with the will and mind of God is beautifully summed up in the Lord’s Prayer. What is significant to note is that Jesus taught us to pray specifically for our daily bread, which is not just our temporal needs but the bread which is the Word of God, the manna from heaven. Thus, we must pray in such a way that our prayer expresses the Word of God itself. Indeed, the Lord’s Prayer is called the Pattern of all prayers because it is a prayer that sums up the whole revelation of who God is for us and what He desires for us. As such the Lord’s Prayer is an eschatological prayer for the coming of the Kingdom. Hence, Jesus gave the Lord’s Prayer to His disciples as the means by which they could sustain their hope for the realization of God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven.

From this perspective flows the implication of calling God our Father. For if we see God as our Father, then Jesus is our brother. This means that we are brothers and sisters of the same Father. That being the case, we must therefore live like brothers and sisters, forgiving each other in His name, just as He readily forgives us because we are His children. If our Father forgives our fellow brothers and sisters who sinned against us, we who claim to love Him so totally would surely not want to sadden Him by continuing to hold grudges against one of His children. Hence, an authentic prayer must be truly a biblical and Christocentric prayer.

Hence, effective prayer presupposes that we forgive and pray with a good and clear conscience. The failure to forgive will block our ability to pray effectively, as our hearts and minds are closed to God’s will. This explains why Jesus remarked that “if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours; but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.” This must not be misunderstood as if the Father would not forgive our failings if we do not forgive others. On the contrary, this is spoken from our perspective of God’s love and mercy. The point is that if we do not forgive others, then we cannot receive God’s forgiveness since our hearts are too hardened to understand the mercy and love of God.

Thirdly, forgiveness is also linked to the Word of God and prayer. It is impossible to remove the blocks in our lives unless we hear the Word. Only by hearing the Word, can we be enlightened and be convinced to at least see the logic and the benefits of forgiveness. So hearing the Word presupposes forgiveness. Without hearing the Word of God, we will never understand the love and mercy of God for us. Only when we know that God loves us so much in Jesus, can we then be inspired to forgive like Him.

But even if we are convinced of the truth of His love for us, we will still not be able to forgive unless we pray. Only prayer is powerful enough to change the hearts and minds of man. Only in prayer, in our intimate relationship with the Lord, touched by His heart and love, can we find the strength to forgive. Prayer therefore connects us with the heart of God, the hearts of man and our own brokenness. Prayer is a prerequisite to liberating ourselves from our slavery to our sins and passions.

The end result of listening to the Word, praying and forgiving, is that we experience the love and power of God working in our lives in a real and concrete way. We are transformed in our relationship with God, towards others and ourselves. As we are transformed, so will the situation around us be changed. In this way, the unconditional love and power of God is felt in our lives, which brings about its positive effects on others. As we become more like Christ, which is what Lent is all about, we renew our lives in Christ by renewing our baptismal commitments.

Indeed, this would be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision through whom God avowed that “the word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying out my will and succeeding in what it was sent to do.” Yes, we are transformed by the Word through effective prayer, the removal of all sins and obstacles in our lives. This, then, is the mystical perspective of the Lenten program as it truly inserts us into the life of Christ, which is the paschal mystery.