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Lent 2022
The Cistercian monk Michael Casey, in his book Toward God, writes, “There is a peace that comes from knowing the worst.” Much of the anxiety of our lives comes from a reluctance to face honestly the truth about ourselves and about the world around us. We imagine that if we hide from or ignore the ugliness within ourselves or the ugliness we witness outside ourselves, we can escape the pain that it often brings. But that isn’t so. Our desire to live blindly in a false world doesn’t protect us from the pain that comes from sin and weakness and our mortality. Indeed, our attempt to hide from reality only deepens the wound and heightens the pain. When we finally come to face the worst, a longer road to recovery is required.
Lent affords us an opportunity to face the worst about ourselves and the world and to find peace in the knowledge that, even in the destructiveness of our greatest sins and weaknesses, Christ is still Lord. At the Easter Vigil we will sing, “O truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” There is a peace that comes from knowing and facing the worst. The worst is that we are terribly flawed -- self-centered, egotistical, power-seeking and proud -- and these flaws cause harm to those we love and others around us. During Holy Week, a young first century Palestinian will be killed for no reason other than others’ pride demands it. That is the worst. But the peace is Christ’s resurrection.
Fr. Dexter -
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