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ASH WEDNESDAY: THE FIRST DAY OF LENT

For Reflection

Brother Alois succeeded the late Brother Roger as Prior of the Taizé Community in 2005. He wrote a series of meditations for the daily newspaper La Croix during the year 2008–2009. This meditation was composed for the beginning of Lent.

Lent: Turning to God Lent first directs our thoughts to the image of the desert, the one in which Jesus spent forty days of solitude, or the one that God’s people crossed by walking for forty years. Yet when these weeks before Easter returned, Brother Roger liked to recall that it was not a time for austerity or sorrow, or a period to cultivate guilt, but rather a season to sing the joy of forgiveness. He saw Lent as forty days to prepare to rediscover little springtimes in our lives.

At the beginning of the Gospel of St Matthew, when John the Baptist proclaims ‘Repent!’ he means: ‘Turn to God!’ Yes, during Lent, we wish to look towards God in order to receive forgiveness. Christ has conquered evil and his constant forgiveness allows us to renew an inner life. We are invited to a conversion: not to turn towards ourselves in introspection or individual perfectionism, but to seek communion with God and also communion with others.

Turning to God! It is true that in the Western world, it has become difficult for some people to believe in God. They see his existence as a limitation on their freedom. They think they must struggle alone to build their lives. That God walks alongside them seems inconceivable.

A year ago I visited our brothers who have been living in Korea for thirty years. On the way, another brother and I had youth meetings in several Asian countries. What struck me in Asia is that prayer seems natural. People belonging to different religions pray spontaneously in an attitude of respect, even adoration.

Of course, in those societies there are no fewer tensions or manifestations of violence than in the West. But a sense of interiority is perhaps more accessible, a respect for the miracle of life, for creation, a focus on mystery, on an afterlife.

How can we renew our interior life by discovering and rediscovering a personal relationship with God? In all of us there is a thirst for the infinite. God created us with this desire for an absolute. We must let this aspiration live in us!

Lent is a season that invites us to share. It leads us to sense that there is no spiritual growth without consenting to give something up, and to do so for love. Once when he was in the wilderness, Jesus, moved by compassion for those who followed him, multiplied five loaves and two fishes to feed everyone. What kind of sharing can we accomplish in our turn?

During this time of Lent let us dare to review our lifestyle, not to make those who do less feel guilty, but for the sake of solidarity with the deprived. The gospel encourages us to share freely while setting everything in the simple beauty of creation.

A MEDITATION BROTHER ALOIS

Scripture Reading

ST LUKE 9:12–17

‘All ate and were filled.’

Prayer

This Lent –

let your door stand open to receive Christ,

unlock your soul to him

offer him a welcome in your mind

and then you will see the riches of simplicity,

the treasures of peace,

and the joy of grace.

ST AMBROSE (ADAPTED)