PURE PLEASURE OF LENT

I wonder if we could take delight and pot it, strategically placing all that gives us pleasure into a garden container. I think this is the way of the gardener, when they aren't in the garden making a new bed of flowers they are pouring over catalogs, planning the additions to their flower beds, anxiously waiting for spring.

We have this opportunity to find our true selves, to uncover from the riches and rubble of the past year and begin arranging our hearts and minds to live abundantly. The world sells a kind of riches that brings us poverty of spirit: more and more technology, entertainment, food and drink that leaves our spirits emaciated. We struggle to breathe the life of God, for commerce of the culture can literally choke the true life out of us.

Pruning our loves and lives in the course of Lent does much to restore authentic beauty to our souls. Less grasping, less rush, less accumulation and we find what has been lost: peace, love and joy.

How are the fruits of the spirit growing in you this season?

Medicine from Sacred Writings:

"For there is nothing whatever that will be able to afflict one who is well ordered in mind, and careful about his own soul.; but he will enjoy a pure and continued pleasure."

John Chrysostom   Fourth Century