Thought for the Week

Mgr Kieran Heskin

Sacred Heart Church, Ilkley

LENT, which begins on Wednesday, provides Christians with the opportunity to follow Christ at a more intense level. When his name is mentioned today, it is very often mentioned in relation to his social teaching: his care for the sick, the marginalized and the poor. Sight however should not be lost of the fact that he was not only a socially conscious person; he was also deeply religious. He was a man of deep prayer. He prayed at the rising of the sun in the morning, at the lighting of the lamps in the evening as well as at countless other times. He also regularly attended places of worship: the synagogue every weekend and the temple in Jerusalem for the three great annual pilgrim feasts.

Down through the centuries, true followers of Jesus have likewise been people who have been devoted to daily prayer and who have found peace in the presence of God. In frequenting their weekly places of worship, they have taken their burdens with them to the altar. In these sacred spaces, like children simple and unashamed, they have spoken to the Lord about things they would not dare to share with others. Here they have placed their trust against the constant fear of nothingness. Here they have found shelter from the swirling shambles of their world. Here they have found something to hold on to, when all they have loved has been dying of time. Here the silent wish has been made that life might lead to something great. Here is where those who have gone beyond have met with those they left behind. Here their past and present stay, here their future is guaranteed. At this crossroads of eternity and time, through a glass darkly, they see him: him in whom they live, move, and have their being.

May the coming forty days of Lent be days during which the sense of Christian vocation is deepened and the resolve to follow Christ more closely is strengthened in prayer. May the superficial come to be exposed and the consequential revealed. As they worship in their churches, may Jacob’s New Testament children awake from sleep with the thought that “surely the Lord is in this place” (cf. Gen. 28.16) and may they depart with a renewed conviction of their need of God and of his need of them.