Lent 2008: A Journey to Hope This Lent, Education for Justice has chosen to focus these Lenten reflections on the nature of hope. As one of the theological virtues, it requires the habit of action. As a promise of Christ, it draws us more deeply into the life, death and resurrection. As a verb, it is an imperative to spur one on. As a noun it is another name for a Christian - one who has hope. In November, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued his second encyclical, Spe Salvi, On Christian Hope. This document offers a sustained reflection on the essential nature and substance of hope. We encourage you to read the document in its full context and we offer you quotes from the document for your prayer and reflection for each day of Lent. We are called as Christians in this season of Lent to embark on a journey of the soul. We are invited to invest in the rich practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. With each week, may you be aware of the invitation before you to journey in hope. To come to know God the true God means to receive hope. Spe Salvi #3 Not yet as light as hope We remember the long dark nights of Ashdod; They were long because you stood in the Philistine place passively; They were dark because the gods of the Philistines seemed to prevail. And now we face the long, dark days of Lent: to ponder your strange passivity, to hold deep the suffering of Jesus, to grasp afresh our fragile mortality, that we too will die; to move beyond ourselves to notice the raw loss connected to your absence. We name the brutality among us; We make the greed so close to us; We see the poor, the homeless, the exploited, while we enjoy the easiness of the leisure class. And then - dark and long - our eyes shift back to Ashdod; We wait, a heavy wait edging toward hope, not yet as light as hope, as heavy as absence. We pray in the name of the crucified. Amen. Prayer by Walter Brueggemann. Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2003). Page 152.
Ash Wednesday Scripture Readings: Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. -Joel 12 Have mercy on me, God, in your goodness; in your abundant compassion blot out my offense. Wash away all my guilt; from my sin cleanse me. For I know my offense; my sin is always before me. Turn away your face from my sins; blot out all my guilt. A clean heart create for me, God; renew in me a steadfast spirit. Do not drive me from your presence, nor take from me your holy spirit. Rescue me from death, God, my saving God, that my tongue may praise your healing power. -Psalms 51:3-6, 12-14, 16 The inner transformation of the human person, in being progressively conformed to Christ, is the necessary prerequisite for a real transformation of their relationship with others. It is necessary, then, to appeal to...the permanent need for inner conversion, so as to obtain the social changes that will really serve the human family. #42, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,Vatican City, 2004 During Lent, how can we work on our inner transformation, nurturing compassion and mercy? How do we develop the heart and mind to authentically recognize and respond to God s entire human family and to the challenges of Catholic social teaching? How do we practice hope, the virtue essential to Easter? Christ, as we begin this season of Lent, help us to open our hearts, minds and souls so we may be transformed within. You have given us your teachings and your own life as a model of compassion, mercy and forgiveness; may we reflect on these more deeply as we prepare for the hope of Easter. sin is understood by the Church as the destruction of the unity of the human race, as fragmentation and division. Babel, the place where languages were confused, the place of separation, is seen to be an expression of what sin fundamentally is. Hence redemption appears as the reestablishment of unity, in which we come together once more in a union that begins to take shape in the world community of believers. Spe Salvi #14 Ash Wednesday, February 6 Thursday, February 7 Faith draws the future into the present, so that it is no longer simply a not yet. The fact that this future exists changes the present; the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into those of the future. Spe Salvi #7 Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey. Spe Salvi #1 Friday, February 8 Saturday, February 9 Today as in the past, this is what being baptized, becoming Christians, is all about: it is not just an act of socialization within the community, not simply a welcome into the Church Faith is the substance of hope. Spe Salvi #10 the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life. Spe Salvi #2 2 /6
First Week of Lent - Sunday Feburary 10 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. The tempter approached and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread. Jesus said in reply, It is written: One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God. Matthew 4:1-4 Monday, February 11 Tuesday, February 12 If progress, in order to be progress, needs moral growth on the part of humanity, then the reason behind action and capacity for action is likewise urgently in need of integration through reason's openness to the saving forces of faith, to the differentiation between good and evil. Spe Salvi #23 Where freedom is concerned, we must remember that human freedom always requires a convergence of various freedoms... Let us put it very simply: human beings needs God, otherwise they remain without hope. Spe Salvi #23 Discovering that they are loved by God, people come to understand their own transcendent dignity, they learn not to be satisfied with only themselves but to encounter their neighbor in a network of relationships that are ever more authentically human. Men and women who are made new by the love of God are able to change the rules and qualities of relationships, transforming even social structures. They are people capable of bringing peace where there is conflict, of building and nurturing fraternal relationships where there is hatred, of seeking justice where there prevails the exploitation of man by man. #34, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,Vatican City, 2004 Wednesday, February 13 Thursday, February 14 Reason needs faith if it is to be completely itself: reason and faith need one another in order to fulfill their true nature and their mission. Spe Salvi #23 In the field of ethical awareness and moral decision-making, there is no possibility of accumulation [of progress] for the simple reason that human freedom is always new and persons must always make decisions anew. These decisions can never simply be made for us in advance by others if that were the case, we would no longer be free. Where do I look for nourishment for my soul? How can I open myself to be made new by the love of God? What will support my growth as a loving human being? How can attentiveness to the quality of my relationships contribute to other changes needed for transformation? I give thanks for your unending love, Creator and Lord.You nourish my soul and I grow in knowledge, spirit and discernment as I listen to your teachings. I long to be ever more authentically human and to be open to the work of transforming structures and systems that prevent others from being fully human. Friday, February 15 Saturday, February 16 Freedom must constantly be won over for the cause of good. Spe Salvi #24 Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Rom 8:38-39
Second Week of Lent - Sunday Feburary 17 For the LORD S word is true; all his works are trustworthy. The LORD loves justice and right and fills the earth with goodness. But the LORD S eyes are upon the reverent, upon those who hope for his gracious help, Delivering them from death, keeping them alive in times of famine. Our soul waits for the LORD, who is our help and shield. May your kindness, LORD, be upon us; we have put our hope in you. Psalms33: 4-5, 18-19, 20, 22 Monday, February 18 Tuesday, February 19 anyone who does not know God, even though he may entertain all kinds of hopes, is ultimately without hope, without the great hope that sustains the whole of life. Spe Salvi #27 Being in communion with Jesus Christ draws us into his being for all ; it makes it our own way of being. He commits us to live for others, but only through communion with him does it become possible truly to be there for others, for the whole. Faith in God and in Jesus Christ sheds light on the moral principles that are the sole and irreplaceable foundation of that stability and tranquility, of that internal and external order, private and public, that alone can generate and safeguard nations. Life in society must be based on the divine plan... in the presence of serious forms of exploitation and social injustice, there is a need for a radical personal and social renewal capable of ensuring justice, solidarity, honesty and openness. #57, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,Vatican City, 2004 Wednesday, February 20 Thursday, February 21 Love of God leads to participation in the justice and generosity of God towards others. Loving God requires an interior freedom from all possessions and all material goods: the love of God is revealed in responsibility for others. Christ died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died' (cf. 2 Cor 5:15).21 Christ died for all. To live for him means allowing oneself to be drawn into his being for others. How do we sustain our hope, stability and tranquility in the midst of suffering or difficulty? How can we embrace a vision of reverence and compassion toward others and transform and renew ourselves, personally and as a community? Loving God, renew in us a sense of reverence that allows us to see and affirm all your children in this world and to understand the situations that cause injustice. Open our eyes to the goodness that surrounds us but often escapes our gaze or attention. Grant us the vision to place our trust in You even in the midst of suffering and to actively hope for justice. Friday, February 22 Saturday, February 23 We need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. Spe Salvi #31 God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. God s Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; God s Kingdom is present wherever God is loved and wherever God s love reaches us. Spe Salvi #31
Third Week of Lent - Sunday Feburary 24 Here, then, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children and our livestock? So Moses cried out to the LORD, What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me! The LORD answered Moses, Go over there in front of the people, along with some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the river. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink. This Moses did, in the presence of the elders of Israel.The place was called Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, Is the LORD in our midst or not? Exodus 17:3-7 The principle of the universal destination of goods [in Catholic social teaching] also applies naturally to water, considered in the Sacred Scriptures as a symbol of purification. Inadequate access to safe drinking water affects the well being of a huge number of people and is often the cause of disease, suffering, conflict, poverty and even death... The right to water, as all human rights, finds its basis in human dignity and not in any assessment that considers water as a mere economic good. #484, #485, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,Vatican City, 2004 What does fresh water symbolize to you? How aware are you that the resource of clean water is growing less available around the world? Where can you be more mindful of your use of water and reduce wasting this resource? Lord, may your gift of water be cherished and shared around the world. May no man, woman or child go without clean water. May our care for this resource ensure life for all. Monday, February 25 Tuesday, February 26 We must learn that we cannot pray against others. We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and comfortable things that we desire at this moment that meager, misplaced hope that leads us away from God. We must learn to purify our desires and our hopes. We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves. Wednesday, February 27 Thursday, February 28 My encounter with God awakens my conscience in such a way that it no longer aims at self-justification, and is no longer a mere reflection of me and those of my contemporaries who shape my thinking, but it becomes a capacity for listening to the Good itself. Failure to recognize my guilt, the illusion of my innocence, does not justify me and does not save me, because I am culpable for the numbness of my conscience and my incapacity to recognize the evil in me for what it is. Hope in a Christian sense is always hope for others as well. It is an active hope, in which we struggle to prevent things moving towards the perverse end. It is an active hope also in the sense that we keep the world open to God. Spe Salvi #34 Friday, February 29 Saturday, March 1 Only the great certitude of hope that my own life and history in general, despite all failures, are held firm by the indestructible power of Love, and that this gives them their meaning and importance, only this kind of hope can then give the courage to act and to persevere. Spe Salvi #35 Certainly we must do whatever we can to reduce suffering: to avoid as far as possible the suffering of the innocent; to soothe pain; to give assistance in overcoming mental suffering. These are obligations both in justice and in love, and they are included among the fundamental requirements of the Christian life and every truly human life. Spe Salvi #36