Lenten devotional - day 25

As we continue on our Lenten journey I found myself thinking of Thomas Merton this morning. The Trappist monk inspires me long after his passing. His words still teach me. He once wrote, “Lent is not just a time for squaring conscious accounts: but for realizing what we had perhaps not seen before.” This quote speaks to the transformative nature of Lent, as we use this time to reflect on our lives, our actions, and our relationship with God.

I hope, if you are still reading these letters, that I have tried to convey that idea. Lent isn’t simply a time of realizing our mistakes and attempting to correct them, it is a time to become more fully awake to the Divine reality that is within us, all around us, and far beyond us. Lent is a time to become aware of the miracle of existing. All of this transforms us.

Merton also wrote, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” Lent is a time to strive to deepen our love for God and for all those we encounter. And, as we do, may God grant us the ability to embrace and celebrate the unique and beautiful qualities of those in our lives, rather than trying to mold them into an image we want them to be.

It is never too late to love people as we find them. It is never too late to perfect our love. “Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come,” Rumi wrote long ago. There is something in his words that feel like the kind of love I wish to have for others. An inviting love that welcomes them even if they have broken their vows a thousand times; a divine love.

Such love is the love of Christ. It seeks one lost sheep, one lost coin, welcomes home a prodigal son, rejoices each time a sinner repents (over and over and over). The religious people of Jesus’ time never understood this… the religious people of our time rarely understand this; God never stops loving.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” He tells us this after he tells us to love our enemies and bless those who persecute us, “so that you may be Children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”

Have we truly experienced the love of God before? Not simply towards us for us to receive, but emanating from us?

As I’ve said, I don’t claim to understand the cross at all. I just know it does something. It’s done something to billions before me, and its does something to me. It calls me and empowers me to love like that; perfectly. I’ve tried to get away from it. It costs so much. It costs us our lives. But, the gain is life (ironically), and love in its fullness.

Hopefully we gain a little more, transform a little more, and get a little closer to perfection this Lent.
Until later,
Garrett