Lent… To live with the taste of Eternity !

Dear Friends,

A year ago... On the eve of our retreat opening the period of Lent, we decided to cancel the event following the visit in our home from a couple coming back from the North of Italy which was deeply affected by the first wave of this pandemic. For us, it was a prudent decision, taken to protect you, a few weeks before several countries across the world, including our own, went into “lockdown.” This word, which was then almost unheard of… now holds the number one spot for most used words.

We have been living in this unknown reality, marked by a realisation of our vulnerability, sometimes welcomed with the awareness of how fragile the human condition really is, sometimes rejected with mind-boggling denial. We have learnt to live with these thin material shields called “facemasks” which have become an essential item of daily protection. We have had to renounce the spontaneous language of our bodies: handshakes, hugs and gestures of affection...in lieu of other more concentrated signals, the intensity of a look, a tone of voice, a heartfelt word....even the language of our relationships has changed, finding between the frustration and fear of contagion, a space for relational creativity. Many have been subjected to and are still subjected to isolation, which is hard to bear, a painful reminder that we are made to live in relation with others. The crisis, which was initially called a health crisis has quickly become both an economic and social crisis which looks to last a long time, affecting the majority of the population.

This trial also marks the life of faith for many among us. How many of you expressed how much they missed the Word and the Eucharist...I have often thought of this famous quote from the Martyrs of Abitanae (4th Century): “Without the Day of the Lord, we would not be able to live!” As during these long months, we have been unable to welcome you and share our lives and faith with you and we are still are today, we have tried to keep up this link of the Word, an essential link of nourishment. This blog is the concrete form of this link...while we wait to re-open our doors.

Lastly, from one Lent to the next, on a journey trembling with the promise of an outcome that still seems a long way off, this “Covid Crisis” has driven us to an essential questioning of ourselves. What is it that truly holds me? Who makes me live? What horizon should I be heading towards daily? Is there someone who makes me live? And so on. If Jesus had not shown us that each of us is held for eternity in the hand of the Father, would living have any sense if it was to finish in nothing...?

Often, Lent is presented as a time of asceticism, of deprivation, of worthy moral efforts...it is rather rare that we talk about it as a time in life, of linking up to the Source, of growing our interior space, of happily welcoming the life of Another, of delightful participation in the Life that God shares with us...is it not this life that our hearts and bodies are burning to know? To live this transitory time with the taste of Eternity?

Without a doubt, the text we are offering today will give you a profound appetite in this period of ‘fasting’...In this talk given in 2009, Roger introduces us to the vital taste and this space that Jesus wants us to have within so that we may welcome Him and live with Him. His words plunge us into living a profound experience: his, which today concentrates on this single sentence from Jesus, “Stay with me”(John 15.4) Yes, “True asceticism is living and allowing to live, receiving and giving. We can only do that when there is someone in our hearts.”

Wishing each one of you a wonderful Lent!

Olivier Sournia

French to English translation by Debbie Garrick and Cécile Simon

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... [Read more...]