Editor's Note: In monastic communities the prioress gives an Lenten address to the members of the community on Ash Wednesday. This is Sr. Mary Catherine's 2018 address.
The purpose of Lent according
to Benedict is to purify our way of life and to wash away negligence—to make
reparation for what we have done or failed to do. He names five practices to
help us: refuse to indulge in evil habits, devote yourself to prayer, reading,
compunction of heart and self-denial. No one of these is unfamiliar to us. This
evening I would like to lift up one phrase from verse 4 as a possible focus for
our reflection and practice during this Lent: Devote yourself to prayer. Devote commonly means to give one’s all
or much of one’s time or resources to a person, cause, goal, etc.
Benedict speaks of private
prayer here in chapter 49, as well as in chapters 20 and 52. In chapter 20 he
instructs us to keep our prayer short and pure. In chapter 52 he reminds us
that the oratory is to be a quiet place that is used only for prayer. Timely
reminders to us this evening!
On average we are daily together
in the chapel for around 1½ to 2 hours at Liturgy of the Hours and Eucharist.
That experience and practice of prayer is primarily with words—lots of words,
spoken, chanted and sung. Much of it we know by heart. Our minds may wander or
drift off at times but our eyes and ears are on the words and actions.
This Lent finds us living in
an extraordinary time of insecurity, fake or threatening news, unrest and
violence of every sort and the usual worry about the unknown and the future.
My recommendation to us this
Lent is to find and make part of your private prayer a few words from a Liturgy
of the Hours antiphon, psalm or the closing prayer. Our Lenten liturgy provides
numerous images, phrases or a word that can capture our prayer and carry us and
others through the day and the season.
Here are only a few of the
ones that we have heard today alone:
v Have mercy O Lord.
v Rescue the weak and needy.
v Teach me wisdom.
v Create in me a clean heart O God.
v Give a future with hope.
v Forgive and you will be forgiven.
v Do not be like a horse or a mule.
Let us hear God’s word and pray
it as our own this Lent.
Sr. Mary Catherine Wenstrup, OSB
Dear Sister, thank you for this good word. How could I measure the duty and love given by your family group in worship everyday, singing and praying to God, in your true intention, the offering arriving in heaven? Asking for His mercy on all the family and friends. The faith is true, the sacrifice is acceptable, God hears the prayer. You continue this love and duty every day without ceasing, and OSB has done so for how many hundred years? Much more than a thousand years. If I were a small existence, I might hide in that room and listen, and become blessed! I pray that bad news, false and distorted information, hurtful thinking, slander and exaggeration be converted to the opposite in the strength of increased love for one another, amen. God bless OSB, amen.
ReplyDeleteListen with the ear of your heart...and ponder. Thank you for sharing...to feast upon, goodness and being positive in the world fast from the emptiness of hate, but feast in love. Fast from despair and hopelessness, feast in hope, etc. Thank Sr Mary Catherine for sharing
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