Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, where he fasted for 40 days. We, too, are journeying in the desert with our Lord Jesus Christ during these 40 days in Lent. We are called to seek God in all things as we journey during this Holy Season. We all received one of these little magnifying glasses on Ash Wednesday as we began our Lenten journey. When we received the ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, it was proclaimed to us: “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Jesus was thrust into the silent stark desert, where he spent time praying and fasting. Silence is one place we are to seek God on this Lenten journey. Unfortunately, silence can be so uncomfortable in our modern world where there is so much noise around us.
Normally, at the beginning of mass, we have a grand entrance hymn as we joyfully enter into our Eucharistic celebration. We then normally sing the Gloria, adding a celebratory character to our liturgy. However, as we entered mass in silence on our knees today on this first Sunday of Lent with no entrance hymn and no Gloria, we know that we are in a very different season, that our mass has a very different flavor today. Think about how we do not kneel very often in our modern world today. One instance is when a man kneels when he proposes marriage to his intended bride. Kneeling in that case is a sign of love, respect, reverence and honor. We hold those same attributes dear to us as we kneel at the beginning of mass on our Lenten journey, as we begin our Lenten Eucharistic celebration and put ourselves in the presence of the Lord.
Thinking about the silence at the beginning of mass today, we recognize that If we just surround ourselves with noise all the time, if we talk all the time and refuse to be quiet and listen, then we might not hear God in the subtle ways that he speaks to us. In Lent, we are called to be open to new ways of looking to things, to seek God in the different ways he is present to us in the world. Take this picture we have here off to the side of the altar. Looking up close, we see a bunch of little photos looking back at us – that is all we can see. Yet, stepping back and going even further back, we see a new image that is revealed to us – the image of Jesus. And if we get rid of the noise that is filling up our minds, if we step back and listen to God, then perhaps we will hear God in a very different way than we normally do.
We are to seek God in all things on our Lenten journey, but we are not to seek him as we would seek a lost object, according to Thomas Merton. To seek God in all things is to recognize the ways he is already present in our hearts, the ways he is already present in the world around us. If we are having trouble finding God in silence with all the noise that is going on in our hearts, we are to specifically look for a place of quiet and silence where we can truly listen to God and be in his presence.
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