Beloved!

Blessed be God who has called us to LIFE! Happy Ash Wednesday! Thank you for sharing our 2008 Lenten Journey.

You are blessed and loved,

Fr. John

"Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God."

Joel 2:13

I know a priest who, every day, lays prostrate on the floor and cries out, “I am nothing. I am nothing. I am nothing. Fill me.” What a beautiful picture of turning to the Lord in total dependency by someone who knows he is nothing without God. Lent is a time to lay prostrate before our Lord, declare our nothingness without him, and ask him to show us the perfect way. So, the question begs, how dependent am I on the Lord? Do I see that every breath that I breathe is only possible because God is the source of it?

Three traditional Lenten practices that we always read in our Gospel on Ash Wednesday are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Two of them focus on our personal relationship with the Lord and the reality that we totally depend on him and the third is a call to giving that flows from the infilling of God’s life we receive from depending upon him as the source of all we do.

In prayer, we prostrate ourselves before the Lord to declare to the Lord and all people we are nothing on our own power. But in our own nothingness we go to the Lord in prayer believing that Jesus will lift us up in his power to the fullness of life. Our prayer is a statement to the whole world that without God we have nothing and with him we have it all!

Fasting is the way we remember what we are truly hungry for. Last Lent I gave up drinking pop and, at the time of this writing, I have only had one pop since. Pretty good, huh? Each time I think about having a pop, I am reminded that what I hunger for most cannot be satiated by any type of material consumption. The greatest hunger I have is for God’s love guiding me to the fullness of life. The blessing of fasting from pop is that I am daily reminded of that hunger and how I must respond to it by turning to God in prayer and dependence.

As we turn to the Lord in the dependence of prayer and fasting he fills us with his giving. As we are filled with his giving we give to others, especially the poor which is what almsgiving is all about. The more united we are with the Lord, the more generous we become for the poor.

Lent is a time to remind us that daily we should throw ourselves on the ground in our nothingness and cry out to God, “I am nothing. I am nothing. I am nothing. Fill me.”

God’s will!

+Fr. John

Here is a prayer I wrote about how we, who are poor in spirit, rejoice in our total dependence on Jesus who is perfect in spirit. Spend time with this prayer before the Lord.

The Poor in Spirit

Lord, I come before you poor.
I bow before you for all.
I kneel in need.
Each breath I take, every beat of my heart, comes from you. Without you, I have no life within. Without you, I am nothing.
Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.
I am poor in spirit. You are perfect in spirit. Please hear my prayer.
I am impatient. I ask you for your patience.
I worry about so many things. I fail to trust your loving plan. May your perfect love cast out all fear.
I am hurt and I cannot forgive. I know you have forgiven all.
The divorce and brokenness in my family does not go away. I need your love to help and heal.
The family, your family, is not united in love. I am torn and divided.
I struggle to believe in your love and forgiveness. How could it be? I am poor in spirit as I long for more of you.
My addiction is so powerful. I feel defenseless against its destruction. Be my defense and let me live according to your word.
I regret my sin. It haunts me daily. I cannot forgive myself. Show me your forgiveness.
I gossip, slander, condemn and swear. Teach me to only speak words of life.
I do the things I do not want to do and the good that I want to do, I do not do.
I am not wise or powerful- but you are.
I am not noble but you fill me with the nobility of being your daughter, your son.
I am lonely and my loneliness endures. I know there will be no loneliness in heaven. The hope I have for the loneliness to flee, the hope I have for heaven, is not yet fulfilled. I am poor in spirit.
Send me your spirit. I am lowly and account for nothing. What life do I have besides yours? Who will supply my lack but you? What God can save except you?
Yes, you are my God! You alone are my life and my salvation. I boast in you. You lack no love. You are perfect in spirit and you will show me the way to walk and give me the power to do so. I boast to all the world that you, who are perfect in spirit, have chosen to pour out your spirit on me as I bow in total need before you. I, who am poor in spirit, boast in the hope that one day you will bring me to the place where I will never again be lacking in your love and life. Lord, you keep faith forever. You raise up all those who bow down before you. I kneel down before you in the confident hope that you will raise me up. I am poor in spirit and you are perfect in spirit. Send forth your spirit and I shall live. I genuflect before you each moment of my existence.

Amen.