Withdrawing to be alone with God
First Sunday of Lent (B)
As we know the forty-day season of Lent is based on the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness beyond the Jordan River. What does one do in the wilderness for that period of time?
The immediate human experience of being in such a place is to be aware of the abiding silence. There are no or few living creatures. There is an emptiness and a barrenness. One senses the absence of distractions. One is faced with the reality of oneself.
There is also the experience of the lack of the essentials for human life – food and drink and shelter. Deprived of the usual supports for human life, the immediate experience is of our vulnerability: How will I survive?
We are confronted with our essential frailty and fragility – and this is good. Comforts create the illusion that we can manage. In the end we can’t. Human life is short. It will end. The wilderness reveals our mortality to us.
I am sure many have tuned into the TV series “Alone Australia”. The group of survivalists were dropped off at a most forbidding location, possibly Lake Pieman on the rugged and bleak West Coast.
This was an extreme experience of isolation, and it brings home the question: how would I survive there? And the answer is obvious I wouldn’t.
For Jesus withdrawing to the wilderness it was not an exercise in survival but rather meant as a time for silence and prayer away from all distractions.
He had just been baptised in the Jordan by John. He knew the time had come for him to commence his public ministry. This forty-day retreat was to enable him to be spiritually prepared for what lay ahead of him, and for his final destiny which he knew.
We have all had some similar experience of taking time aside to prepare ourselves for a new direction in our life, to undertake a new assignment. It is a natural need to gather our thoughts and emotions as we are about to take a new step in our life.
Before a man is ordained as a deacon or priest, the Church requires that he make a one-week retreat.
Each year the Church invites us all to enter into a sort of retreat as we prepare to celebrate once again the Paschal Mystery, the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ – the heart and meaning of Christianity.
It is not possible for us to engage in a level of retreat, of silence and of personal deprivation that Jesus himself undertook, but the Church urges each of us to embrace this season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving with a level of personal commitment.
Next year, 2025, there is to be a celebration of a Holy Year in Rome. This is now a common occurrence, every 25 years a Holy Year is declared.
Pilgrims are invited to come to Rome and take part in various spiritual events there. Now, for most of us here in Tasmania this will not be possible. However, we are still asked to engage with the Holy Year.
In preparation for the next Holy Year the Pope has asked that this year be seen as a “Year of Prayer”. Thus, it is fitting as we begin Lent to focus particular attention on the quality of our life of prayer.
To this end I have written a Lenten Pastoral Letter on the theme of prayer (and I encourage you to take a copy home with you and read it).
Our life of faith is one of a living personal relationship with God. Jesus encouraged us to see God not as a distant deity, but as our Father.
He used a very familiar term, “abba”, “dad”. There is a warmth and intimacy implied here. There is a consciousness that I am important to my father. He is interested in me and my life at a personal level.
Jesus is the Son of the Father. In the Gospels we see constant reference to the centrality of this relationship. Jesus would never think of doing anything that was not in full accord with His Father’s wishes.
Thus, when He gives us the words, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, He is simply reflecting His own focus on doing everything in accord with His Father’s will.
This Lent let us give special attention to the place of prayer in our life.
As Jesus withdrew to a place of silence, can we find time to withdraw to a place of silence? This can be in our own home, in a quiet corner, or a comfortable chair.
It can be visiting a church or coming to adoration when it is offered in the parish. It can be deciding to attend one or more of the weekday Masses provided in the parish. Or it could be taking oneself off to a quiet place, taking the Scriptures with us, or our Rosary beads.
Jesus withdrew to be alone so that He could be alone with His Father. This Lent let us find some time to be alone with God, our Father.
Tonight, as I mentioned, we have three people who are to be enrolled to be fully initiated into the Church this Easter. The Church has traditionally seen the Lenten season as a time for the final spiritual preparation for catechumens.
To the catechumens: I will examine you and enquire of your godparents in a few moments but may I offer a few words.
In light of what we have been saying about prayer this evening, I encourage you to ground your life in the Church in prayer. Make prayer a component of your life each day. Look at your daily schedule and consider what would work best for me.
As you enter into the full sacramental life of the Church this Easter may you receive the grace to live as true sons and daughters of your heavenly Father.
Archbishop Julian Porteous
Saturday, 17 February 2024