It’s been cold and rainy here in the Bay Area, at least cold by California standards. Wind chill. Woke to snow on Mount Diablo the other morning. Rather like our souls, feeling the cold and rain and wind of the world battering our Lenten journey.
We are called to sanctification, says Saint Paul to the Thessalonians in our Epistle today, and Lent helps us with that. We clean out our hearts and our habits and all the mess that we have made of our lives. We scour with honesty, disinfect with courage, and peek at what we have left. We repent of our pride and our unlove and our breaking the commandments without care. We desire to be made new, to be healed and made whole, by the greatest miracle worker of all, Christ Jesus, who in today’s Gospel, heals the daughter of the Canaanite woman who is “grievously vexed with a devil.” He does it from afar, because the woman believes, is faithful. (Matthew 15:21+)
We too, want that healing. We too, want to have that kind of faith.
And so with great difficulty I have tried to memorize my psalm, but the words slip away, so I placed it in my phone with easy access, banishing my excuses or at lease embarrassing them. “God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and show us the light of his countenance and be merciful unto us.” (Psalms 67)
Mercy, blessing, and light. Like the burning bush, perhaps. Light radiating from his face toward us, love enlightened. Sacrificial love, the kind of love we are to practice. Forgive my unlove, Lord. Teach me to love.
But can we love with a cluttered soul? We must clean things up.
I visited our Berkeley chapel this morning and afterwards looked into the basement of Morse House next door where we store things, all kinds of things (don’t ask). It needs cleaning out, sorting, reboxing. There were files that needed tending, histories that needed recording and saving for future generations.
I thought my soul must look like that if the light of the Father’s countenance were to shine upon it. Things forgotten, things undone, things done that shouldn’t have been done. And so I pray for the light to see the damage, the minutes, hours, days and years of living, all packed into memory files that need opening and scouring.
I have found that weekly Eucharists help with this, feedings to strengthen my soul. The Church is like a spiritual gym and must be enjoyed weekly if not more often. We have been given the great gift of Christ among us, solving our sufferings, leading us with the light of His countenance. In the Mass we confess our failings and receive absolution. We are clean when we step to the altar and receive Christ himself in the mystery of the bread and wine.
Thinking now of this morning, and the amazing contrasts between the ordered space of the chapel and the disordered space of the basement and the wailing wind outside, I am thankful for the good clergy we have, the faithful friends who worship alongside me, and the organ that sends notes of glory into the russet dome above, sent aloft with our soaring songs.
I am thankful for a moment of brilliant light that revealed who we are, children of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
“God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and show us the light of his countenance, and be merciful unto us…”
Christine Sunderland
Christine Sunderland 