The Spirit drove Jesus into the desert.  Will you follow?

Our Lenten journey beings Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010

By Deacon George Trosclair

The journey will soon begin, our Lenten Journey. Will we accept the challenge to go into the desert of Lent, the desert of purification?  The desert that prepares and cleanses us for the Paschal Mystery that awaits, as we conclude our journey with Holy Weeks’ Triduum?

But we have a choice.  If we choose not to accept, not to participate, Jesus’ words from the cross will resonate in our souls, “Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachtani”; paraphrasing, “My people, my people, why have you forsaken me?” 

Mark’s gospel of Jesus’ temptation states, “The Spirit drove Jesus into the desert.”  Will we also allow the Holy Spirit to drive us into the desert of purification, the desert of our souls?

“But why the desert?” you ask. Thomas Merton in his book, “Thoughts in Solitude”, talks of the “Solitude of the Desert”.

He states that the Desert Fathers believed that the wilderness had been created as supremely valuable in the eyes of God, precisely because it had no value to men. The wasteland was the land that could never be wasted by men because it offered them nothing. There was nothing to attract them. There was nothing to exploit. The desert was the region in which the “Chosen People” had wandered for forty years, cared for by God alone. They could have reached the Promise Land in a few months if they had traveled directly to it. God’s plan was that they should always look back upon the time in the desert as the idyllic time of their life with Him alone.

The desert was created simply to be itself, not to be transformed by men into something else. So, too, are the mountains and the sea.  The desert is therefore the logical dwelling place for the man who seeks to be nothing but himself, that is to say, a creature solitary, poor, and dependent upon no one but God. 

The Gospels of Lent reflect our Jesus’ Messiah-ship. Preparing for the ultimate, the “Grand Finale”, the fulfillment of His Dad’s Holy Will, and the cleansing of humankind—our “Salvific Gift”, “Life Eternal”. The final ascent to Mt. Zion/Golgotha/Jerusalem looms deadly ahead.

The gospels reflect our Jesus repeatedly predicting His passion and death; praying that His disciples, as well as you and I, grasp their meaning to the fullest.  From now on, Jerusalem is Jesus’ destiny.

From now on, Jerusalem is our destiny, the fulfillment of our Lenten Journey. Jesus’ Messianic call becomes our call to discipleship. Jesus’ Paschal Mystery becomes our Paschal Mystery. 

Let’s step back for a minute and realize what our Lenten Journey is all about. Nature is in the early stages of its spring chrysalis. The cocoon of death is beginning the “labor pains” of resurrection; an awareness of our resurrection.

The dogwood trees are barking. The wisteria is in hysteria.

The redbuds are saying this bud is for you. The mock orange trees are laughing at winter,

And bursting forth with resurrection. The bridal wreaths are singing,

“Here comes the Groom; the Easter Groom of Resurrection—Our Jesus.”

But we must stay with the Alpha to realize the Omega. We must live our Lenten Journey always to keep the Easter Vigil alive within us. The Paschal Mystery becomes our Jerusalem, our destiny.

The Holy Spirit breathes on the ashes of our Ash Wednesday, and once again, ignites the joy of our Jesus’ Paschal Mystery, our radical challenge to discipleship. 

As we tiptoe through the gospels of Lent, we are transfigured in the chaos and creativity of our intimacy with our Jesus. In week three, Luke invites us into the parabolic language of our spirituality:  “But I tell you, if you do not repent you will all perish.”

Strong words, but our Jesus is opening our souls to the parable of the fig tree. Will we allow our “Lenten Gardener”, Jesus, to cultivate and fertilize our souls, so that we may be the fruitful fulfillment of His loving forgiveness?

Week four could be labeled as a hallmark of our God’s loving compassion, the beautiful story of the Prodigal Son. This precious parable urges us to realize our spiritual state and cry out, “Father I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your boy, your girl!” At once, in a nanosecond, we are in the embraced in the loving arms of our Jesus, and feel the kiss of His loving forgiveness descending upon us.

Week five with John’s gospel, we address our spirituality. There are many burning questions of this week:  Have we allowed the sickness of the world to adulterate our spirituality? Will we allow our Jesus to challenge our judgmental instinct?  Will we continue to judge others, and thus judge ourselves with the negativity of the world?  We pray for the grace to let our Jesus doodle in our souls and hear His precious words, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and continue your Lenten journey and sin no more.” 

Wow!  Holy Week hits hard at the duplicity of our spirituality. One moment we are with the multitude singing, “Hosannas, glory, praise, and alleluia! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.” But again, we slip back into the world’s sickness as we join in with the multitude and shout out, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”

But we stand before the power of evil and wash feet for our Eucharistic Jesus. We become an example to those who would wash their hands of our Jesus by becoming the living, breathing, pulsating Body of Christ.

We are called like Lazarus to be people of the Resurrection; to let Jesus roll back the stench of our spiritual death. We boldly come forth from the chrysalis of despair to be united and go forth to our Jerusalem, our Paschal Mystery, our Jesus. We, the modern day Simon of Cyrene’s and Veronicas, go freely into Jerusalem to minister with our Jesus.  We will have our Gethsemane’s, our scourging, our thorn crowning, and our Eloi, but we will always shout out, “Father into your hands we commend our spirits!”

Yes!  We live in a “Good Friday World”, but we are “Easter People”; people of the Resurrected Jesus.  The stone has been rolled back. We have been untied. The spirit-filled freshness of our Jesus has challenged the stench of our spiritual sickness/death. We are untied and set free because we have heard the Lazarus call, “Body of Christ come out!”

We are the living, breathing, radically awesome Paschal Mystery of the Resurrected Jesus.

Paraphrasing the song, “Jerusalem our Destiny”, we sing:

“Jesus, our destiny, we have fixed our eyes on your cross. Jesus, our destiny, though we cannot see the end for us, we cannot turn away. We have set our hearts for the way. This Lenten Journey is our destiny.  Let no one walk alone. This Paschal Mystery makes us one.”

Humbly prayed,

Your Deacon George