A Colloquy for Lenten Preparation

 A followup on my last post, Distant sound of Lent approaching:

As Ash Wednesday approaches, if you are thinking of doing the Septuagesima70 path, I highly recommend listening to the first colloquy with Fr. Mark Withoos. It is a helpful, gentle, and challenging exhortation to follow the old ways to live Lent. 

You can find it here. 

Father gives an overview of the spiritual goals of this journey (particularly meditation) and the navigation of the site and resources. 

See what you think! There's still time to get it all geared up -- that's the beauty of the traditional pre-Lenten season. Remember, you can tailor your penances to your own situation. As chaplain of the program, he is there to help. Your own spiritual director can help you with questions as well.

I also recommend Suzan Sammons' Stations of the Cross in Slow Motion for spiritual reading to nourish your Lent. If you sometimes get the feeling that the Stations go by too quickly of a Friday afternoon in church, I think her guide to them day by day is fruitful. It is a collection of meditations from Church Fathers and saints and is aimed to help the whole family, with questions for discussion and reflection. Perhaps a good way to focus dinnertime conversation! 

Distant sound of Lent approaching

A rare Sunday message today, about Septuagesima70, a plan that begins today and continues through Lent. 

I'm not a program person, because the Liturgical Year offers us what we need in the spiritual realm. This plan is simply a way to put into practice the change of heart necessary for Christian life. It begins today on the traditional day, Septaugesima Sunday, of heeding the Lenten call, albeit heard in the distance. 

It's not something separate, a sort of "brighter idea, added onto or replacing Lent -- I would be totally against any such thing. 

No, sometimes we just need something to be spelled out, and that's what this is.

We are still two (and a bit) weeks away from Ash Wednesday. In the Novus Ordo calendar, it's "Ordinary Time." But even so, we have been aware in the liturgy of a growing emphasis on God's Law and His holy ways, and the necessity of adhering to them. How to do it?

God has given us a way to go along with Him on the path to Heaven. It has to do with our inner life, the hidden closet into which we must go with a repentant heart, in order to find and follow Him.

A transformation occurs when we start to live in His divine life. It requires a visceral, interior cooperation from us -- especially in our willingness to start again and again, after each failure and fall, to acquire certain habits that ultimately become virtues. For a virtue is simply this: a good habit that becomes part of us, a second nature; it's just that for a Christian, that "second" nature is divine.

As with any habit, at first, effort -- sometimes great effort -- is needed. And this is where the Liturgical Year comes in. The cycle of days and seasons offered by the Church offer us the right moments in which to respond to God's call. Now is the acceptable time.

The best plan -- and it can be put into practice at any moment, but let's say now is a good opportunity -- has certain elements in it:

It motivates us to put forth the necessary effort, but also doesn't cause us to lose courage. 

It aims high, but doesn't dismay. 

It involves camaraderie -- knowing others are also trying, at that particular time, to get similar habits helps us run the race. 

It has the components that acknowledge our human nature: physical and spiritual. 

It also gives us the advantage of a spiritual director, so we don't go too easy or too hard on ourselves, by relying on ourselves. I know Fr. Mark Withoos, the chaplain, very well -- he is an old friend. He combines a thorough knowledge of traditional practices in austerity, penance, and self-abnegation with a generous, heartening, and cheerful attitude. 

The life of virtue is a life of good habits won through mortification in every area. Good habits require knowledge, practice, fortitude, prayer, self-awareness, and something outside of oneself to correct.

I think Septuagesima70 is a way to acquire a newness of life -- just in time for Easter! The practices start tomorrow. Today, reflect! 

Begin again this Lent

On my other blog, I posted about making your home's little oratory or prayer place. I did write a book with David Clayton about how to do this; it's not hard because you probably already have all you need to get started (and if not, our book is like a little kit), it doesn't have to be fancy, and you don't need to think about anyone judging you, because it's a traditional thing to have in your home.

This Lent is a great time to start on this project, and it's important because a place of humble beauty draws us in to prayer, and if we even desire to pray, we are already praying! Instead of relying on the abstract thoughts in our minds, we can have beautiful images that radiate the love of God.

In the book, which is called The Little Oratory: A Beginner's Guide to Praying in the Home, we also explain the difference between devotional prayer (such as novenas) and the liturgical prayer of the Church, The Divine Office. We give you help to get started on perhaps praying Vespers or Morning Prayer with or even just for your family. 

My Facebook friend Denise Trull posted a reflection on her Lenten resolution regarding this practice (which can be as little or as much as you desire, as a layman; perhaps just praying Compline with your children, for instance) -- and I asked her permission to share what she wrote, because it's very inspiring, informative, and beautiful:

This is going to be part of my Lenten efforts. To pray the real Divine Office. I love the Magnificat book’s format, but I find I am missing all these psalms. When I prayed it more regularly in times past I almost had them memorized. And parts of them came so easily to mind. Plus, it is the official prayer of the Church. It is Christ praying in a special way through me to the Father. 

I remember a talk given by an English Benedictine here in St Louis named Father Laurence.He was lucid,  knowledgeable, and obviously in love with this prayer as a true son of Benedict would be. 

He started with a quote from the beginning of the Liturgy of the Hours in the Instructions.   It made me think of the wonderful scene in C.S. Lewis's ‘The Magician's Nephew’ when the magnificent Lion sang the world of Narnia into existence and kept singing to make it fruitful.

"When He came to give men and women a share in God's life, the Word proceeding from the Father as the splendor of his glory, Christ Jesus, the high priest of the new and eternal Covenant, took our human nature and introduced into the world of our exile that hymn of praise which is sung in the heavenly places throughout all ages. From then on the praise of God wells up from the heart of Christ in human words of adoration, propitiation and intercession, presented to the Father by the head of the new humanity, the mediator between God and mankind, in the name of all and for the good of all".

The Divine Office is '' that hymn of praise" introduced by Christ to us from Heaven.  It is HIS prayer to the Father and he invites us to pray it to Him and with HIM to the FATHER.  The whole Psalter we are praying is actually Christ praying and simply allowing us to join in.  

Fr. Laurence also said this: 

"We are always heard because the prayer is HIS". 

So even if we are tired, even if we get distracted, even if we feel nothing.  IF we persevere and pray it faithfully, the Father ALWAYS HEARS IT because He hears His Son most of all and our voice through and with His.  That is so BEAUTIFUL.  

And more! We know He is the primary speaker. There are many times we pray the hours of the office and the tone of the psalms does not at all match up to our personal mood at the time. We might be very happy and joyous and be praying one of the lamentation psalms.  Or we may be sad and suffering and the psalm is full of joy.  This is to show us that it is not our personal prayer.  It is the prayer of Christ for his Church and the things that HE wants to be praying to the Father about.  He is the primary speaker.  We are merely invited to join Him.  

For me, this is just such a revelation and a comfort.  It shows me that he is quite physically there.  These are not my sentiments.  These are HIS sentiments.  It is like the spoken words show me that HE is very much present there beside me.  For the words are His and not what I would say alone. WE are praying His words together.  We are never alone.  He is right there singing with and through me to the Father. That fills me with such joy. 

The office. It is beauty and has the pageantry of a dance as the ribbons gracefully flow back and forth. And Christ, the Lion of Judah, sings His song to the Father through my voice and fills the world with the melodies of Heaven and continually renews the face of the earth.

Thank you, Denise. You have expressed the mystery of this liturgical prayer so well!