This past weekend was a "quiet day" weekend for the brothers within Province V of The Brotherhood of Saint Gregory. We met at Seabury Western Theological Seminary. A number of us were called upon to offer meditations this weekend. I was one of the brothers that was "called upon." My offering of a meditation follows.
Spire of Chapel of St. John the Divine at Seabury Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL
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A number of years ago, when I was an aspirant, a postulant, or a novice, a brother in our community was staying with me for a quiet day weekend around the patronal feast much like this one. When one is a postulant, we are still trying to do the right thing. At that time, just about everybody in the community was my senior. He arrived on Thursday, and he and I were headed out for a bite to eat at the corner diner. So like this weekend it was a Friday in Lent. In order to demonstrate my knowledge of tradition, and to curry favor, I said to the brother,
“since it is Friday in Lent, I suppose we can make some non-meat choices.”
He replies
“Non-meat choices? Hell! I’m having steak and eggs!”
I say
“you are?”
I was baffled. I can’t remember the exact words he said to me, but he instructed me in a very kind way that he wished people would get around to acting like the resurrection DID happen. Even in Lent.
He enthusiastically ordered Steak and Eggs. This brother tells me that he thinks too many Christians act like the resurrection never happened.
He said
“We’re NOT JEWISH!”
I was a bit non-plussed, thinking, what would others think, not yet really comfortable in my own spiritual path or place in the community. I don’t remember if I ordered meat or not. I know myself well enough that I am very “when in Rome…….” So I probably ordered bacon.
I can’t say that I had any clear epiphanies just then, but that encounter has stayed with me and come back to me several times since then. I can’t say that personally that I have the capacity to express this fully, but I can’t help but say that it’s left an indelible mark on me.
The season of Lent has come and gone for me several times since then. Some of them I’ve wallowed in the Minor musical keys and the gloom and the sackcloth and ashes and unpredictable freezing weather. Some years I make attempts at “doing something for Lent” but those actions quickly falling away like New Year’s resolutions, while in the middle of eating a piece of bacon, thinking, “oh it’s Friday and feeling defeated, thinking “what kind of religious am I?”
For this year’s season of Lent, I’ve been move to a discipline of abstinence from meat for most of the days in Lent. I’ve ruminated on doing so over the last couple years, and for some reason, perhaps the Holy Spirit, it just came to fruition this year.
On the surface, it could seem like the radical opposite of a feast of Steak and Eggs on Friday.
Additionally this Lent, at the guidance of my Minister Provincial I am reading the meditations associated with the Eucharistic readings for Lent is the book DAYSPRINGS by Sam Portaro.
Immediately Portaro’s book became a challenge for me.
“Does God need your abstinence and fasts?”
The encounter in the diner from several years earlier came back to me. Portaro has been able to get underneath our motivations and humanness, peeling back tradition and laying bare what needs to be focused on.
Portaro elegantly says
Portaro in his book sheds light on Jesus’ feasting in the face of other’s traditional fasting. Portaro points out that Jesus did in fact have his own discipline and fasting based on right relationship, rather than tradition.
What is Lent for? Is it for fruitless self-pity? For demonstrating one’s piety? Or turning back to where we need to be?
The disciplines of our fasts are the opposites sides of the same coin where we feast. Our fasts allow us to affirm life and to feast in the resurrection in relationship with God. My own abstinence has also been a feast of spiritual discovery of which I am grateful, an increased awareness of my impact on those I know and those I don’t know. For me, the fruit of the abstinence is mindfulness. In other words – as Psalmody tells us, “Who can tell how often he offends? * cleanse me from my secret faults.”
I will close with the words of the Lenten Hymn. “Kind Maker of the world, O hear”
The source of the words are attributed to our Patron Saint Gregory the Great.
Listen for the returning, the affirming, for the fruition. Let go of, at least temporarily of your baggage surrounding Lent.
Kind Maker of the world, O hear
The fervent prayer with many a tear
Poured forth by all the penitent
Who keep this holy fast of Lent
Each heart is manifest to thee
Thou knowest our infirmity
Now we repent and seek thy face
Grant unto us thy pardoning grace
Spare us O Lord who now confess
Our sins and all our wickedness
And for the glory of they Name
Our weakened souls to health reclaim
Give us the discipline that spring
From abstinence in outward things
With inward fasting so that we
In heart and soul may dwell with thee
Grant, O thou blessed Trinity
Grant or unchanging Unity
That this our fast of forty days
Spire of Chapel of St. John the Divine at Seabury Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL<><><>
A number of years ago, when I was an aspirant, a postulant, or a novice, a brother in our community was staying with me for a quiet day weekend around the patronal feast much like this one. When one is a postulant, we are still trying to do the right thing. At that time, just about everybody in the community was my senior. He arrived on Thursday, and he and I were headed out for a bite to eat at the corner diner. So like this weekend it was a Friday in Lent. In order to demonstrate my knowledge of tradition, and to curry favor, I said to the brother,
“since it is Friday in Lent, I suppose we can make some non-meat choices.”
He replies
“Non-meat choices? Hell! I’m having steak and eggs!”
I say
“you are?”
I was baffled. I can’t remember the exact words he said to me, but he instructed me in a very kind way that he wished people would get around to acting like the resurrection DID happen. Even in Lent.
He enthusiastically ordered Steak and Eggs. This brother tells me that he thinks too many Christians act like the resurrection never happened.
He said
“We’re NOT JEWISH!”
I was a bit non-plussed, thinking, what would others think, not yet really comfortable in my own spiritual path or place in the community. I don’t remember if I ordered meat or not. I know myself well enough that I am very “when in Rome…….” So I probably ordered bacon.
I can’t say that I had any clear epiphanies just then, but that encounter has stayed with me and come back to me several times since then. I can’t say that personally that I have the capacity to express this fully, but I can’t help but say that it’s left an indelible mark on me.
The season of Lent has come and gone for me several times since then. Some of them I’ve wallowed in the Minor musical keys and the gloom and the sackcloth and ashes and unpredictable freezing weather. Some years I make attempts at “doing something for Lent” but those actions quickly falling away like New Year’s resolutions, while in the middle of eating a piece of bacon, thinking, “oh it’s Friday and feeling defeated, thinking “what kind of religious am I?”
For this year’s season of Lent, I’ve been move to a discipline of abstinence from meat for most of the days in Lent. I’ve ruminated on doing so over the last couple years, and for some reason, perhaps the Holy Spirit, it just came to fruition this year.
On the surface, it could seem like the radical opposite of a feast of Steak and Eggs on Friday.
Additionally this Lent, at the guidance of my Minister Provincial I am reading the meditations associated with the Eucharistic readings for Lent is the book DAYSPRINGS by Sam Portaro.
Immediately Portaro’s book became a challenge for me.
“Does God need your abstinence and fasts?”
The encounter in the diner from several years earlier came back to me. Portaro has been able to get underneath our motivations and humanness, peeling back tradition and laying bare what needs to be focused on.
Portaro elegantly says
It is a good reminder that the original purpose of the forty-day Lenten season was two-fold in function but singular in purpose. Lent was a time for preparing newcomers for relationship with God in the church and it was a time for repairing relationships within the community. It was, in both dimensions, preparation for companionship, for life in community.
Portaro in his book sheds light on Jesus’ feasting in the face of other’s traditional fasting. Portaro points out that Jesus did in fact have his own discipline and fasting based on right relationship, rather than tradition.
What is Lent for? Is it for fruitless self-pity? For demonstrating one’s piety? Or turning back to where we need to be?
The disciplines of our fasts are the opposites sides of the same coin where we feast. Our fasts allow us to affirm life and to feast in the resurrection in relationship with God. My own abstinence has also been a feast of spiritual discovery of which I am grateful, an increased awareness of my impact on those I know and those I don’t know. For me, the fruit of the abstinence is mindfulness. In other words – as Psalmody tells us, “Who can tell how often he offends? * cleanse me from my secret faults.”
I will close with the words of the Lenten Hymn. “Kind Maker of the world, O hear”
The source of the words are attributed to our Patron Saint Gregory the Great.
Listen for the returning, the affirming, for the fruition. Let go of, at least temporarily of your baggage surrounding Lent.
Kind Maker of the world, O hear
The fervent prayer with many a tear
Poured forth by all the penitent
Who keep this holy fast of Lent
Each heart is manifest to thee
Thou knowest our infirmity
Now we repent and seek thy face
Grant unto us thy pardoning grace
Spare us O Lord who now confess
Our sins and all our wickedness
And for the glory of they Name
Our weakened souls to health reclaim
Give us the discipline that spring
From abstinence in outward things
With inward fasting so that we
In heart and soul may dwell with thee
Grant, O thou blessed Trinity
Grant or unchanging Unity
That this our fast of forty days
May work our profit and our praise
Emblem in window in former library space of SWTS. Spiritus Gladius Meaning "Sword of the Spirit" and used with the symbol for the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul has the reputation of being the Apostle to the Gentiles (non-jews). Paul ministered at Antioch, which is recorded as the first Church of the Gentiles. And, the term Christian was recorded as first used at Antioch. (Acts 11:26)
SOLI DEO GLORIA
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