The Tribune

“Love alone allows man to forget himself... it alone can still redeem even the darkest hours of the past since it alone finds the courage to believe in the mercy of the holy God.”

– Karl Rahner, S.J.

THE days of Lent are like a mini-pilgrimage, a retreat, a time for spiritual exercises and practices in preparation for the celebration of Easter and rebirth. A dear friend, a source and example of mercy and healing, who lives overseas, attends daily mass during Lent at a parish not far from his residence.

The celebrant is a priest in his mid-80s. He has suffered a stroke. He labours and struggles with the prayers of the Church, including the Eucharist prayer.

He is necessarily deliberate as he celebrates mass, something he has done thousands of times during his priesthood. Yet, every mass is something of a sacred and arduous task.

After Lent, the friend intends to thank the priest for his witness and continued service, praying and celebrating the Liturgy through and despite his infirmities, advanced age and ongoing recovery. The friend understands better than many what such struggle and courage entails because he too is a priest.

What does it take for the octogenarian cleric to summon his “memory, understanding and entire will” to be present at the Eucharist and to serve those who gather for communion and to find solace and hope in the liturgies of Word and Eucharist?

The younger priest, observing his elder, is reminded that prayer is never easy. It should not be rote and without meaning. Prayer is difficult. It is not a performance art in which we are showing off for others or attempting to appease God.

Prayer is not entertainment or a business service during which we often too easily pretend to pray or engage in pseudo prayer as a means of greedily raking in money for prosperity gospel hucksters. And prayer is not loud bombast and frenzy seeking to impress others with how holy art thou.

Fr Karl Rahner, SJ, one of the giants of 20th century theology, reflected: “Meditating on the nature and dignity of prayer can cause saying at least one thing to God: Lord, teach us to pray!”

Learning

We are forever learning how to pray. This Lent may be an opportunity to renew one’s prayer life, including, potentially, new forms of prayer. “Lord, teach us to pray!”

The German-born Rahner, with a deeply mystical and compassionate spirit, reminds: “When [a person] is with God in awe and love, then he is praying.” Because prayer is an engagement and attitude of love, we are forever growing and developing a richer and deeper prayer life.

How do we spend time with God in awe and love? An older cousin and friend says the older he gets, the less he asks God for something. Much of his time in pray is now spent in awe and adoration of the sacredness of creation and life.

Rahner also muses: “We chatter so loudly to try to make ourselves forget that we are dying.”

Lent is a particular time to remember that our earthly pilgrimage is not an end itself, that our own death may be more imminent than we realise, and that all that we do is in the context of the finitude of ever depleting days and nights.

We viscerally know that we do not have the time we think we have. But we are good at pretending. Lent is an opportunity to practice or to begin spiritual or other exercises that may help us to heal, to grow, to become kinder, and to do less harm to others.

We carry slights, burdens, injuries, traumas, disappointments and patterns of sin that are not easily arrested or ever fully healed. Sharing these burdens with a spouse or partner, a family member or friend, or a minister, priest or counsellor, may serve as a gateway to healing and greater freedom.

We spend inordinate time avoiding the essentials of life, anesthetising ourselves through all manner of avoidances, pretensions and distractions.

This Lent, perhaps it is time to disclose dark areas of our lives which desperately need light. We might finally decide to seek help and advice in terms of spiritual direction, pastoral or grief counselling, or therapy from a psychologist or psychiatrist.

There is a series of commercials on television, one of which includes a man in a gym, who cannot lift the weights off his chest. When offered help, he refuses, stating, “You don’t know my family!” Translation: “We don’t go to therapy, we have to pretend to be strong!” The deadliest sin: pride!

None of us are wise or strong or insightful enough to carry life’s burdens alone. Pride often renders us afraid to be vulnerable enough to disclose our deepest sins and failures, our daily struggles, and chronic spiritual and psychological wounds and pain, often from childhood, which often grow worse as we age.

Our interior lives can become like undrained septic tanks, growing more toxic and filled with stench, which we transmit to others. Imagine a septic tank never drained or teeth never brushed or a wound never cauterised, bound and healed or a body never washed.

Our spiritual and inner lives can become as calcified, as sick and as dysfunctional. One of the most tragic things in life is those who can never truly disclose themselves to another, whether a cleric, a friend, a therapist or someone who can grant perspective and understanding.

Essential

It is essential to human growth and recovery to have genuine witnesses to our lives, who know the mess and pus or darkness of who we may be at times, and who may help us to heal and to restore our better selves, loving us mercifully to new life.

It is liberating to disclose to another the detritus and truth of our lives! The truth of one’s life is that much of that life may have been erected on a foundation and scaffold of lies and untruth.

Especially as we age, and grow closer to death, we might still summon the courage to bear more of our souls and wounds with another, who may help to unburden habits of the heart and mind which remain unhealed and which paralyze and pain us still, no matter our age or state of life.

As Rahner implores: “Love alone allows man to forget himself... it alone can still redeem even the darkest hours of the past since it alone finds the courage to believe in the mercy of the holy God.” And to accept the mercy of our companions.

As people of faith, the ongoing disclosure of our full selves to the God of Mercy, may help to redeem, replenish and renew our spirits. It is this love and the sacrifice demonstrated through the Paschal Mystery or pilgrimage of love of Jesus Christ, that we will celebrate on Easter Sunday.

During these days in Lent, it is an opportunity to reflect on our need for ceaseless conversion. What practices, exercise and attitudes might we renew or adapt to promote greater interior and effective freedom.

Fr Karl Rahner’s Ash Wednesday meditation reminds us of our destiny. It is also a meditation on the need for humility and perspective about the nature of our brief and fractured pilgrimage.

Dust

Rahner offers: “Dust – truly a splendid symbol. Dust, this is the image of the commonplace. There is always more than enough of it. One fleck is as good as the next.

“Dust is the image of anonymity: one fleck is like the next, and all are nameless. It is the symbol of indifference: What does it matter whether it is this dust or that dust? It is all the same.

“Dust is the symbol of nothingness: because it lies around so loosely, it is easily stirred up, it blows around blindly, is stepped upon and crushed – and nobody notices. It is a nothing that is just enough to be – a nothing.

“Dust is the symbol of coming to nothing: it has no content, no form, no shape; it blows away, the empty, indifferent, colourless, aimless, unstable booty of senseless change, to be found everywhere, and nowhere at home.

“Truly, then, scripture is right. We are dust. We are always in the process of dying. We are the beings who set our course for death, when we set out on life’s journey, and steer for death, clearly and inexorably. We are the only beings who know about this tendency to death. We are dust!”

And Fr Rahner invites us to be loving and gentler toward ourselves and others:

“Not everybody, however, has a genuine sense of humour. That calls for an altruistic detachment from oneself and a mysterious sympathy with others which is felt even before they open their mouths.

“Only the person who has also a gift for affection can have a true sense of humour. A good laugh is a sign of love; it may be said to give us a glimpse of, or a first lesson in, the love that God bears for every one of us.”

Love and laughter, two necessary companions during the pilgrimages of Lent and life.