.

I’ve noticed that training and discipline of any kind are possible, profitable and even satisfying if the company through the programme is good and the goal is presented as an enticing achievement.

Think of the athlete preparing for the event, the student preparing for exams, or the parent doing without for themselves so their children can have what they need.

It’s satisfying to be able check the fasting boxes and pat ourselves on the back for achieving our discipline goals.

But is this what Lent is about?

It’s an attractive aspect of Lenten disciplines when each of us, knowing that we are part of a much-larger Christian team, don’t shy away from fasting and penance, and together appreciate how attention and commitment matures our awareness of what it is that satisfies (and fails to satisfy) the desire of the heart.

That is why (for Catholics) very Friday of the year is a day of abstinence in some way (personally or communally decided), unless a major feast (Soleminity) falls on Friday – in which case we celebrate.

So I’d expect that the scriptures for the first Friday in Lent would encourage our common understanding of fasting as giving up and abstinence as doing without.

But that’s not the case.

Instead each of today’s scripture passages, the First Reading from Isaiah and the Gospel from Matthew, warn us of the dangers of focussing on the discipline rather than maturing our discipleship, the friendship with Jesus which is the heart of all religious practice.

Here’s the heart of today’s First Reading:

Surely this is why Lent is a springtime for we pilgrims of hope.

 

CAFE GATHERINGS

Send your date and time to add to the list, and just turn up at at one of the advertised gatherings, just one hour, focussing on where we are encountering Christ.

10.00am Wednesday 12 March. Invitation from Joan
Stumble Inn 200 Mangorei Road New Plymouth