March 27, 2010
Saturday of the Fifth Week in Lent
I will make with them a covenant of peace; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will multiply them, and put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling shall be with them; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Ezekiel 37:26-27
Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to
Piety
Father, throughout this season you have shown us people who have come back to you. The disciples left their former lives to follow you. The woman at the well found herself alone with you and after that encounter she sought and shared the water of everlasting life. The women who was almost stoned found herself alone with you and turned her life around after such an encounter. Tax collectors. Fishermen, Roman centurions. Lepers. Outcasts of all shapes and sizes. Maybe there is even room for a Virginian or two. We know that you want us to come back to you. Give us the gumption to break away from the buzz of our prodigal lives to come back to your open arms.
Study
Yearning. Reading this pair of passages right before Holy Week begins strikes me with a sense of longing, almost an aching. We clearly hear God craving for our presence matched by our hunger and thirst for God’s presence in the routines and rituals of our lives.
Ezekiel presents that hunger and pining from the point of view of the Lord. God wants to bring his people back together with him and with each other. And he will go to great lengths to do just that.
Just listen to God’s lamentations, the extreme measures he is willing to take to bring us back:
“gather them from all sides”
“make them one nation”
“there shall be one prince for them all”
“never again shall they be divided”
“deliver them from all their sins”
“cleanse them so that they may be my people”
“there shall be one shepherd for them all”
“live on the land which I gave to my servant Jacob”
“make with them a covenant of peace”
“I will multiply them”
“put my sanctuary among them forever.”
“My dwelling shall be with them”
“make
“my sanctuary shall be set up among them forever”
Can you hear in this the pleading of a parent who misses her (or his) child)? A friend who will do anything to be reunited with another from whom they have been separated? Can you hear the promises and gifts that will be showered down in favor to spur such reconciliation?
Moving forward to the Gospel, we learn that Jesus has once again headed toward the desert to gather his physical and spiritual strength for the mission which is set before him. The fullness of time is approaching and Jesus is preparing for his purification.
Yet despite the conflict that looms, the people still long for Jesus’ presence in the temple. When he is not there, they can hardly imagine the place without him. They can not even fathom the rituals of the coming Passover without Jesus. What do you think? How can he NOT come back to us?
Action
As we prepare to enter the holiest season of the year, an article in the local family-owned newspaper has caught my attention: “The Silent Treatment: A quiet vacation at
Each year, my father-in-law, the late Alex Costea would spend Holy Week on retreat at Holy Cross Abbey – or Berryville as he would refer to the town. The article describe the experience:
Cistercian monks are withdrawn from the world to be closer to their God, a God who eases toward you in a silence. Their emphasis is on manual labor and self-sufficiency. They hark back to Saint Benedict, who wrote in the 6th century that silence teaches obedience and awareness of sin. The Cistercian order was founded in 1098 by monks who felt that 11th-century monastic life had become too ... modern. Practical speech and talking with those outside the order are allowed -- it isn't a vow of silence, but silence is taken seriously as a spiritual tool.
Today, we heard that Jesus retreated to Ephraim, near the desert, with his disciples. Perhaps we can not all flock to Berryville for Holy Week. However, are we enter the final stages of our Lenten journey, maybe now is a time to take stock in where we can go to withdraw from the world a little in order to draw closer to our God who longs for us to come back to him.
(PS: And don’t forget that one option is the Men’s 120th Cursillo at Missionhurst April 15-18.)
