The Lent has started!
For the next 40 days, we make a spiritual journey of purification
through penance, accompanied with prayer, almsgiving and fasting.
Just as our physiological system produces body wastes as
byproducts of life-sustaining metabolism, our psychospiritual aspect of life
also creates undesired emotions, thoughts, memories, and moods.
Anger,
resentments, hatred, depression, and envy are just to name some. As Jesus has taught us in the 7th
Sunday Gospel reading (Matthew 5:38-48), we are to take care of such harmful
psychospiritual byproducts of life in order to maintain the health of our
hearts and souls, by transforming these harmful emotions, thoughts, memories,
and moods. Certainly, Lent provides an ample amount of time for us to engage in
this psychospiritual cleansing of ourselves.
As long as we retain these unwanted and rather harmful
psychospiritual byproducts, including anger and resentment, then, we will
become more prone to evil beings’ attacks, consequently sinning even more. This
leads us to psychospiritual sickness, similar to how not eliminating body
wastes can destroy our physiological, as well as psychological, health.
The psychospiritual wastes accumulated in our hearts and souls
first must be recognized in order to be cleansed. For this, yes, your own will
power can help – if you have a very strong will. But, there is a danger in
solely relying on your own power, as our own wills are subject to what Yogacara
psychology calls “manas-vijnaana”.
Thus, we all need a reliable external power to ensure that we do find what
really needs to be cleansed out of our hearts and souls during this Lenten
season.
Imagine how well you can perform your own colonoscopy to
yourself by your own will, even you happened to be one of the best GI
physicians. Imagine how better it is to let your colleague does it for you.
Which option do you think problems can be recognized and eliminated more
accurately?
Just as our own vision is not free from a blind spot, our
own mind cannot recognize the reality objectively because of the ego’s
narcissistic disposition or due to “manas-vijnaana”.
For this reason, the Catholics need a guidance from God, who
is the shepherd (Psalm 23:1) and light (Psalm 27:1), as the Mahayana Buddhists
need the immeasurable light of Amitabha Buddha.Guided by and fortified by the great guiding light of God,
we are better able to find what needs to be cleansed out in our hearts and
souls so that our humble plea to be created in clean and pure hearts (Psalm
51:10) can be heard by God. This shepherding
light enables us to be enlightened about our own inner problems and to make a
correct turn from a path of deviation and sins back to God .
Making such a turn is an indispensable part of Lent, as it
is about conversion, as the opening sentence of the first reading on Ash
Wednesday says:
“Return to me with your
whole heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning” (Joel 2:12).
These are words of God in His oracles, spoken to Prophet Joel out
of His shepherdly love.
In the theological context for Lent, God’s invitation to “return
to” means conversion. Conversion literally means to turn around on our path of
sin and return to God, the source of abundant grace, mercy, and love.
The word, “conversion” stems from the Latin roots of “con” – (together) and “vertere” – (turn).
Thus, conversion literally means “to turn around”. Thus, when God is calling us, the sinners who
have drifted away from God, to return to Him, God is calling for our conversion
of hearts.
No matter how far we have come away from God on our sinning path,
God have given us 40 days of Lenten period to make a turn and return to God for
reconciliation.
A Filipino Catholic theologian, Jose DeMesa describes “conversion”
with the Tagalog world, “pagbabalik-loob”.
“Pagbabalik” indicates “returning”
and “loob” means “inner self”. So, “pagbabalik-loob” means returning our
inner selves – to God, “pagbabalik-loob
patungo sa Dyios”.
A good image for our Lenten journey is a turning around of the
Prodigal Son, from a life of persistent sins back to his father (Luke
15;11-32). Jesus uses this parable of the Prodigal Son’s return as a metaphor
for our journey of conversion (turning around and back to God), as the father
in the parable is a metaphor for God. And, the mercy of the father in the
parable, forgiving his son, who offended him so greatly, symbolizes the
immeasurable mercy of God, while the union of the prodigal son and the father
in joy is a beautiful metaphor of our reconciliation with God, the essence of
the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
The prodigal son journeyed away as far from his father as he could
go. But, he came to a point that he needed to return to his father, with
humility and, of course, with a sense of remorse (though it is not clearly
written), by overcoming his own ego’s forces (narcissistic tendency or manas-vijnaana).
So, in order for us not only to recognize our own problems inside
but also to make a sound turn on our path of deviation and embark on the right
path returning to God (“pagbabalik-loob
patungo sa Dyios”) we must overcome our own ego, making ourselves truly
humble.
Upon recognizing our problems, our cleaning journey back to God,
returning to God, “pagbabalik-loob
patungo sa Dyios”, must be characterized by humility. And, this humility is
the key for the three pillars of Lent: prayer, almsgiving, and fasting, as
Jesus emphasized in the Ash Wednesday Gospel reading (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18). In
practicing these three Lenten virtues, we cannot let our narcissistic
disposition or manas-vijnaana
influences. That is why we must always seek and journey in God’s light, as the Mahayana
Buddhists always seek Amtabha Buddha’s immeasurable light to overcome inherent problems
with the defilement disposition (kleshas).
After all, God is calling us to return to Him with humility:
“Rend your hearts, not your
garments, and return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting in punishment”
(Joel 2:13).
In order for us to rend our hearts, we cannot remain ego-centric,
as our narcissistic or manas-vijnaana-infected
ego cannot be rendered.
There is no need to sweat. No need to come up with something impressive
to give up on Lent. There is no need to make an appointment with a priest for a
confession. First, we need to spend some quiet time to dig deeper and examine
our own hearts and souls. Let’s perform a spiritual “colonoscopy”, with the
help of God’s shepharding light. If you have a spiritual director, he or she
can help. For performing an effective “spiritual
colonoscopy”, a great tool is the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of
Loyola. If you have a Jesuit spiritual director, he can certainly guide your Lenten
“spiritual colonoscopy” through the Spiritual Exercises, as effectively helps
us to identify our hidden psychospiritual problems and cleans them just in
time.
How the Spiritual Exercises can be applied for your Lenten
purification needs depends on your unique sins and their psychospiritual
byproducts accumulated deep in your hearts and soul. Thus, it is best that you
consult a Jesuit or Jesuit-trained spiritual director or pastoral psychologist.
But, a Jesuit priest, Fr. Kevin O’Brien, S.J., has graciously provided a great
general resource, based on the Spiritual Exercise: “An Ignatian Prayer
Adventure” – an 8-week purification and transformation program. You can access
this resource by clicking:
So, let’s begin our spiritual exploratory examination – our Lenten
spiritual “colonoscopy”, guided by the shepharding light of God. Let’s not be
fooled by righteous-looking external images that our narcissistic ego has put.
We must get under this “skin”. God has
spoken to us through Prophet Jeremiah:
“Circumcise yourselves to
the Lord, and remove the foreskins of your heart”(Jeremiah 4:4).
According to Yogacare psychology, manas-vijnaana deep within the subconscious part of our mind tends
to create what God calls here “foreskin” of our heart, covering it nicely,
hiding filthy psychospiritual stuff beneath it. In this regard, our Lenten
examination and cleansing journey can be more like a circumcision, rather than
a colonoscopy.
Either way, hidden problems beneath and under righteous outlooks
must be uncovered and removed before they will lead to more problems, keeping
further distance away from God.
In the Ash Wednesday Mass and Ash distribution homily at Madonna
Della Strada Chapel on the Loyola University Campus, Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., applied
a metaphoric image of beautiful fresh snow covering up filthy litters on the
ground. This metaphor was just so suitable as Chicago was covered with fresh
snow on Ash Wednesday this year.
According to Fr. Bosco, through his poetic and visually metaphoric
homily, the period of Lent was also compared to this season of time, especially
for those who live in Chicago, longing for warm spring’s arrival after a long
period of bitter cold weather. Thus, our Lenten examination of our deep hearts
and souls for cleansing (spiritual circumcism – removal of the foreskin, or
spiritual colonoscopy) is like thawing the snow that covers the filth on the
ground. Yes, in Chicago, we get quite a snow accumulation. Thus, it takes a
while to let the snow cover melt.
There, we begin to recognize our sins – what has been defiling us…or
as Buddhist teaching puts it, we start to see our kleshas. We become more able to realize all these negative
psychospiritual factors, including angers, resentments, hatred, and so forth,
not to be repressed or to rationalized, but to be transformed or, as Freud
would put it, to be sublimated into meaningful and constructive ways. This
cleansing transformation takes place, motivated by our desire to return to
God, our need for “pagbabalik-loob patungo sa Dyios”, and guided by God’s shepherding
light, as covering snow gradually thaws. And, this is how the Chicago Catholics
are getting ready to welcome warm spring – Easter, as Fr. Bosco’s homily
alludes to.
May your Lenten journey be always guided by the lantern of God’s
shepherding light.
May your snow-covered hearts and souls be thawed with the warms of
God’s grace and mercy as Lent will give its way to Easter through the Passion
Week.
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