A LENTEN ODYSSEY

Hell is one of those hot topics noone wants to handle. I thought I was immune to that thinking but the Holy Spirit has a way of making me humble, even when I shy away from confronting it. I was thinking of Lent and how the sign of the cross is made on my forehead with ashed burned from the previous year’s Palm Sunday representation. This cross is indelibly marked on my soul at Baptism, a tattoo that I take with me all my lifetime to remind me that, as a Catholic, despite people focusing on the politics of the Church, my calling is to deny myself to follow Christ daily. St. Benedict says, “Renounce yourself to follow Christ (Matt 16:24 and Luke 9:23); discipline your body ( I Cor 9:27); do not pamper yourself, but love fasting.” (RB 4: 10-13). Again, “Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way. The love of Christ must come before all else.” (RB 4:20-21) What it means to be a Catholic at this moment in time and space, plus being a Professed Lay Cistercian, is my way to achieve this transformation from false self (humanity alone), to that of having The Christ Principle as my center (humanity-informed by my Faith and Belief). It is my only wish for each day that life presents itself to me to feast on its treasures using Christ as my yard stick.

Like all other Lents, this Lent is a time of reflection with one exception–I am not the same person I was last year. I need not only conversion through the Sacrament of Reconciliation and receiving the Eucharist, but to glorify the Father through the Son each day, using the energy of the Holy Spirit (not that God needs my glory, but to help me become more human and achieve the purpose of my nature as intended in the original Garden of Eden).

The cross, a sign of contradiction, means for me to be fully human, I must renounce Satan and all his allurement and embrace Christ daily consciously and purposefully through taking the hard road, one that is not easy but difficult, a road that is often rocky and in doubt as to its efficacy. This awareness that my Lay Cistercian life is jammed with sameness (Teens call it boredom), and yet that seeming inconsequential characteristic is, in itself, the challenge of the cross to transform from being just a human to being a human adopted by the Father to inherit the kingdom of heaven on earth but also in the life to come.

Heaven is now. “The kingdom of heaven is within you,” now. My Lay Cistercian Way is a discipline using Benedictine and Cistercian practices and charism to allow me to rise above the martyrdom of ordinary living so that I can see in what others consider to be boring and fantasy, the true purpose of life and where I fit in it.

Lent becomes, not so much a season, as an intensive way to reflect on my penitential self, one in constant need of redemption. I am a pilgrim in a world that is alien to me, one that considers my Catholicism as archaic and so much mumble-jumble. And you know what? It is that for those who have not died for their human-alone approach to life. Lent becomes a time to make all things new once again. Lent is different because I immerse myself in the process of being a penitential person through the Liturgy of the Eucharist and Reconciliation. I am aware that now I am aware of how much God has given me through Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and, with a spirit of gratitude, give back to God the only thing he lacks from me, my free will to say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This completes the circle of being human, from physical and mental universes to that of one reality with three separate universes, tied together with The Christ Principle, awaiting my YES as Mary chose to give her recognition and consent long ago.

Hell, like sin, means I choose evil over good. There is only one absolute truth and that is outside of our humanity, absolutely. God is the truth that does not change. When I look at Hell or the Devil, I see a condition or a spirit that wants me to say that evil is good. Being sinful means that I know what is wrong, know that God says for me not to put my hand on the hot stove, but do it anyway. Evil is far more malevolent. Evil means that I think that what is evil is good. I make myself God. I make myself the lynchpin of Truth. Hell and Satan are the exception to reality, not the rule.

Lent is a time of humility, where I reaffirm my humanity and my place in the cosmos. I use my free will to give to God what is God’s and what is Caesar’s to Caesar. I must keep in mind that I have dual citizenship as a human but as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father. Lent is a time of purposeful spiritual reconversion and awarness.

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