Creating a space to welcome the other...

The events that took place during Jesus Christ’s life on earth are also the events of our lives. He took everything from our existence, from our human condition with all that it entailed, including death and all forms of death before we definitively die. Our lives are crossed with moments where things appear and then melt away, until the moment where the melting away becomes death, where each person’s destiny finally appears like a horizon which closes in on itself. There is a before and then after we do not know...

Destiny and Jesus’ life are a bit like a watermark, the blueprint for each of our lives. Jesus took each of our destinies with him, inside of him. In death, he took all the forms of death, including the ultimate event of our time and he did not remain enclosed, he came out of the tomb. Saint Paul states, “We were buried with him in death so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:4). What we believe to be the end, the term, is not the end, it is not the term. Do you truly understand that our lives are not a dead-end? That is doesn’t all end with burial? In the same way that the large stone closing Jesus’ tomb was definitively rolled away, there is no fixed horizon for us either: there is the life of Jesus-Christ because he loves us and he cannot, in loving us, help but give us all of him. His life takes our deaths and draws us towards the power of his resurrection. “Jesus,” as Paul also stated, “Was the firstborn from among the dead.” (Colossians 1)

Today, at this time of lent, 40 days before Easter, the Church tells us to, ‘Take a good look’, because often, we live as if our lives have been taken over. Taken over by all the things to do, by everything we do, by everything we want. It is as if, at that moment, we lose the sense of the Source which is within us, the Source of this Life that death does not end. This life is for us. He died for us. He was born again for us, to take us, so that this life which is his becomes ours. The horizon opens up...

So, during this time of lent, we revert to ancient symbols, like fasting... It was written in the Deuteronomy: “Man cannot live by bread alone” (Dt 8:3) and from everything he can take in. We do not live simply on material food, but we also live on the Word of God, we live by welcoming the life of another, at every moment. So, in that sense, a certain amount of restricting food was experienced to make you think about another form of ‘nourishment’ and not forget about it.

How do we live? What do we nourish ourselves with? How do we spend the time we are living? We can see that most of the time we are busy with little ‘nothings’. We run about all over the place... So the profound significance of fasting is to remind us that there is an interior space that needs taking care of. And to take care of this space, some things must be put out, otherwise, we are overcrowded!

Today, fasting is a way of dealing with the fact that we have become a consumer society. We consume everything, turn on the radio, television, all the trends appear and we chase after them! Suddenly there comes a time when we say to ourselves, “At the end of the day, I ran, I made the effort, but why?” In the end, what makes me live? Or better still, who makes me live so that I am not living alone? Human beings cannot live without relationships. Who makes me live today? Am I simply a consumer or is there someone who I receive and who gives me joy, the joy we discover when sharing? That is why we have never been able to separate fasting from sharing. It isn’t about emptying everything, emptiness has no purpose. It is about creating a space to welcome the other, so that the other may live.

So, it is more about an inner attitude: creating a space within. It is about fasting from all those inner occupants that are surplus and searching for where there is space to breathe. Where is the place for the Source? Who makes me live and am I allowing someone to live within me? This inner space is not simply a space where we can get our lives in order, it is a space that we create, first by welcoming He who makes us see, who guides us, who through his life makes us feel where we are going. It is simply the conscience of Christ who finally, opens our spaces. Otherwise, it would be self-denial Self-denial in itself has no purpose except to preserve us in the same state, pickled as if in vinegar! True asceticism is living and allowing to live, receiving and giving. We can only do that when there is someone in our hearts.

This is why the Church encourages us to fast during this time, it is to create inner space to welcome Christ, to open our lives to our brothers and make them live by sharing.

Roger Robert
25th February 2009

French to English translation by Debbie Garrick and Cécile Simon