Reflections on Lent - April 6 '09

Daily Reflections on Lent:

"Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward." Peter said, "Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you." Jesus answered, " Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times."

- John 13:36-38

Christ will never turn away from us, whatever we do or become, even if we turn away from him; this is the clear teaching of the Christian faith. But it was also clear that Christ will not condone our remaining unreal. He will not allow us to hide in our illusions and pretenses but will call us, sometimes even constrain us, to face them and uproot them from our hearts and thus come back to our true reality. He calls us to repent for them.

This does not happen in a single moment; if we saw all of our unreality all at once, it might lead us to despair. Christ's mercy instead leads us to it slowly, step by step. One moment it may be a negative emotion - jealousy, resentment or fear - that has been eating away at our heart but that we had not been able to understand or acknowledge until now. The next moment we are asked to face and to dismantle our pride or egotism or any other of the countless tendencies and feelings that keep us from being true to ourselves.

- Irma Zaleski
[ Finding Christ Within ]