My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ

The last couple of weeks have been intensely focussed on our diocesan Benedictine retreats and, with Ash Wednesday falling in the middle of one of them, it is perhaps appropriate to begin by quoting what St Benedict had to say about Lent in the 49^th Chapter of his Rule.

"The life of a monastic ought to be a continuous Lent. Since few, however, have the strength for this, we urge the entire community during these days of Lent to keep its manner of life most pure and to wash away in this holy season the negligence of other times. This we can do in a fitting manner by refusing to indulge evil habits and by devoting ourselves to prayer with tears, to reading, to compunction of heart and self-denial. During these days, therefore, we will add to the usual measure of our service something by way of private prayer and abstinence from food or drink, so that each of us will have something above the assigned measure to offer God of our own will with the joy of the Holy Spirit (1 Thess 1:6). In other words, let each one deny themselves some food, drink, sleep, needless talking and idle jesting, and look forward to holy Easter with joy and spiritual longing."

Benedict is not here suggesting that our Christian life should be a life of joyless and ongoing rigorous self-denial. If anything, the opposite would be true; his Rule is much less rigorous and demanding than most of the other Rules of his time. Throughout the Rule Benedict makes concessions for human weakness and frailty that, in his time would have probably been perceived as laxity. No; for Benedict, Lent is not about asceticism, but about intensity of focus.

The opening words of the Rule addresses us as prodigals who have gone astray through the sin of pride and disobedience, but who long for home. For Benedict the key to our homecoming lies in listening attentively and obeying, and the Rule is simply a means to that end. And because we waver and flag along the way, Benedict urges us to use the period of Lent to refocus and to get ourselves back on track.

In her commentary on the Rule, Joan Chichester tells the story of a man who visited a Zen master to seek enlightenment, but who, instead of listening, dominated the conversation. After a while the master served tea. He poured tea into the visitor's cup and just kept on pouring until the visitor exclaimed, "Can you not see that my cup is full. It is not possible to get any more in." "Just so," said the master. "And like this cup, you are filled with your own ideas. How can you expect me to give you enlightenment unless you first empty your cup?"

She goes on to say: -

"A monastic Lent is the process of emptying our cups. Lent is the time for trimming the soul and scraping the sludge off a life turned slipshod. Lent is about taking stock of time, even religious time."

I like the images she invokes, and I love the almost poetic quality of her words; seeing Lent as a time for emptying ourselves of everything that is not of God, of trimming the soul and scraping the sludge off a life turned slipshod. I guess it is the last of those images that really speaks to me, for I have seen the sludge in a seized engine and have all too often felt my own life weighed down with just that kind of sludge. And the reality is that much, if not most of that sludge, is the result of a life turned slipshod.

It is all too easy for sludge to appear in our lives. And it's not even a matter of willful disobedience, but as Benedict says, simply a matter of negligence. In that wonderful, anonymous little book on the Jesus Prayer, "The Way of the Pilgrim," the writer attributes the sludge in our lives to the "slothfulness" of being too spiritually idle, lazy and undisciplined to recognise what is happening to us and to do something about it. And our Lenten discipline, says Benedict, is the remedy; a time to sharpen the focus and, once again, "to prefer absolutely nothing to the love of Christ."

The word, 'discipline' does not have much currency in our hedonistic culture, but is perhaps all the more important because of it. Discipline derives from the word 'disciple.' To be a disciple, a follower, is willingly to place ourselves under the authority of another; to be under 'discipline.' That is why Benedict urges us to do something that goes beyond the normal requirement of our lives as a free-will offering 'of our own free will.' It is an acknowledgement of our dependence upon God, a token of our desire to be a disciple. Each time we are confronted by the promise of the sacrifice we have made we are brought back into focus and reminded that we are "to prefer absolutely nothing to the love of Christ."

The discipline of Lent points us towards Easter. There is a strong theology of joy in Benedict's chapter, and the word 'joy' itself is used twice, the only time in the Rule. Through our Lenten discipline offer ourselves "with the joy of the Holy Spirit" and "look forward to Holy Easter with joy and spiritual longing."

May God be with you.

+Brian

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