Chicagoland

It is in the desert where we hear God’s voice the loudest

By Father Ryszard Gron | Contributor
Sunday, February 28, 2010

Lent plays a considerable role in the liturgical year. This time should help us experience the mysteries of salvation in our lives. The liturgy offers us signs and symbols drawn from a tradition that’s been given meaning by God. It is worth seeing these symbols and signs as a way to approach his plan of salvation for us.

40 days

Lent lasts 40 days. Forty is a symbolic number that indicates a special time of preparation before a meaningful encounter with God. Because of our sinfulness, we need to stand before God adequately prepared.

The prophets would prepare themselves for a long time before an encounter with God, especially when an important mission awaited them. Moses fasted on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights before ascending the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments. Elias traveled 40 days and 40 nights by the power of a heavenly meal reaching Mount Horeb where he experienced his meeting with God in the form of the mild hum of the wind.

Even the pagan citizens of Ninevah, thanks to the preaching of Jonah, fasted for 40 days to reconcile with God and saved their city from destruction.

Jesus, following the symbolic meaning of these signs, went to the desert for 40 days to prepare himself for his mission of salvation. Each of us receives, in the season of Lent, his or her own 40 days — a time to prepare for an encounter with God in Easter.

Desert Sojourning

This period of 40 days of preparation takes place in a “desert.” It is a place located far away from the noise of the world and its pleasures, where God can be found and heard in the depths of one’s heart.

It is not necessary to literally be in a desert to find this place of solitude. We just need to create some distance from the influence of the world in order to be able to listen to the Word of God. The prophets and a multitude of saints secluded themselves in actual deserts, where personal sacrifices increased a profound desire for God.

It was the same with Jesus, who, in a human way, wants to teach us to search for God far away from the turmoil of the world in the deep silence of the heart.

It is a task for each of us to create the condition of a “desert” in our hearts, detaching ourselves for a time from the world’s distractions and entertainment.

Distribution of ashes

The gesture of putting ashes on the forehead is the first sign of entering into the process of encountering God during this period of 40 days. The sojourn in the desert must begin with a proper interior attitude, with an acknowledgement of one’s own unworthiness and sinfulness. This attitude in the face of the majesty and mercy of God is called humility.

Humility places us in the correct posture before God, reminding us that we are insignificant and need conversion (“Remember, you are dust and to dust you will return.”).

Fasting, almsgiving

The posture of humility introduces us to the climate of the desert. It is here, in this necessary isolation, where the meeting with God has its way. An atmosphere is created by fasting, almsgiving and prayer — the three fundamental biblical actions of the soul’s coming back to God.

The prophets and the saints often took up these practices, as did Jesus, before giving his life on the cross. These actions in effect, reflect our love of God, and our seriousness to pursue salvation.

They enable us to hear God in the depths of our hearts while in the solitude of the desert.

The color purple

The Lenten stance of “being the person in the desert” evokes the color of blood (red), mixed with a heavenly goal (blue). These colors blend to form violet — the color of mourning and sadness, of hard labor and torment.

It is typical of the desert atmosphere where everything is barren, and everything achieved or received is the result of pain, suffering and violence. The joyful meeting with God comes in the austerity. Violet is also the color of the blood shed by the Son of God who brought low the heights of heaven for us.

Stations and songs

The Lenten liturgy that is responsible for bringing us this salvific substance always reminds us of the love of God for us, the Love who offered himself for us on the cross. This story of love, so faithfully kept in the heart of the mother of Jesus, survived in the form of biblical narratives.

It was also the subject of meditations by monks and fathers of the desert. With time they created a form of traditional and folk liturgy used by simple people and known today as the stations of the cross and Lenten songs.

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