Getting close to Easter

 

-->-->

Lent is passing.  Already, there is only a week left.  The Lenten journey is an interesting one, to varying degrees, which depends on your Lenten practices.  I know, for me, one of the things I chose to do is give up desert (since desert is a daily thing in our house).  The first few weeks, it was almost force of habit that drove me to want desert.  My sister would bring in the cookie tin and I instinctively wanted to just reach in and grab one.  It felt weird not to have a sweet after dinner (nor after any meal for that matter), to say nothing of how much my taste buds longed to taste something sweet to end the meal.

Then there was a middle period where I felt my habit break.  I didn’t need desert anymore like I used to.  Getting up from the table without covering my tongue in sugar was finally starting to feel natural.

Then came the next phase.  I WANT SOMETHING SWEET!!!!  My body is craving a sponge cake with light, sugary frosting all over it, maybe a strawberry with whipped cream on it.  Sure, Sundays don’t count as Lent, so everyone tells me.  But one tea cookie a week is not satisfying my craving.  I love salt – anyone will tell ya – but I’m a sweet tooth at heart.  And my poor sweet tooth is crying out for mercy!

Lent is a time of spiritual renewal.  It’s the perfect time to refresh your relationship with God, especially if you’ve been trying to put more into it of late.  Some take Lent as a time of constant sorrow – particularly for sins – and distress – particularly for sins.  Some use Lent as an excuse to be more cheerful, even while they reflect on their sins.  Which ever way you swing, we do need to reflect on our sins, come to grips with it, and acknowledge our need for God.

It’s hard to admit and acknowledge all our sins.  It can be irritating to admit that we sorta fibbed, or that we should have kept our temper, or that we weaseled out of an obligation.  But to admit that we’ve done all these things and probably more than we’re initially aware of, that’s really hard.  And in the midst of this self-awareness, it can be really hard to “come to grips with it”.  “Yes, I did it.  I am sinful.  I am a sinner.  God still loves me.”  Once we can get over the “oh my gosh, I a mess, I’m not the great person I thought I was”, it’s just a small but crucial step to hang on to God.  After all, when we have acknowledged our sin, there’s really only two things you can do – cling to God desperately, or decide that whatever you’re doing actually isn’t wrong (or I suppose you could go into the depths of despair).  There really is no middle ground or you wouldn’t have gotten to this point in the first place.  The initial step is to decide not to be lukewarm.

It may be that we will never find perfection in this life, but I know that for me, the easiest way to battle sin is to increase my love – intake and outtake.  First you have to receive Love (ahem, that would be God, if that wasn’t clear enough) in order to give it.  Spend time with God, He will give you the love you need to love Him and His creation.  If you love His creation, defeating sin will be a whole lot easier.  Your sin hurts God’s creation in multiple dimensions, and it’s easier to stop sinning when you don’t want to hurt someone than when you’re just trying to break a habit.  At least, so goes my experience.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity

Surely some revelation is a hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming!  Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

(My analysis:) All is confusion, none is order.  It destroys the world like a wild animal “loosed” from a cage.  Blood flows in a “tide”.  All that was pure is stained, “dimmed”.  There is no act of innocence anymore.  No one pretends to be good, nor tries to be.  All fall to their evil ways and relish in it.  Once, even among some of the worst, people went through the motions of being good, pretended what they were doing was okay.  According to the poet, this state ends, drowns.  The best of the people left on earth do nothing.  They go along in their ways but have no conviction to offer righteousness.  They do nothing to stem the flowing tide of malice.  The most corrupted people are passionate in their evil.  They carry out their evil with the conviction that the good lack, and their passion intensifies with exercise.

Although I found the style of the poem (by Yeats) hard to read, I think it is a very good poem to reflect upon for this season.  Yeats seems to be saying that a “revelation”, either good or bad, has to happen, because civilization is disintegrating.  And he considers what the Second Coming might be like.  And he examines the ages up until then.  It’s worth contemplating.  It really is gruesome when you begin to fully realize the image Yeats is painting.

I've been feeling really in love with my faith lately.  It could be because I've been more aware of the hatred lately so my burning loyalty is kicking in.  But I've also been trying to pay it more attention lately too.  The other day, in the Adoration chapel, for the first time in a while, I prayed the Chaplet while looking at a Crucifix.  I wasn't meditating on anything in particular, but I was impressed with a deeper appreciation of the prayers.

Hosanna in the Highest!

~Meggy