1. Water quenches the thirsty. It refreshes and restores in hot, torrid climes. Water is therapeutic: it rejuvenates the dead and dormant, and creation blooms again. Water is life-giving.
    However, that water is scarce is increasingly oblivious to many who live in suburbia and luxuriate in the technological. As a Singaporean, I only need to turn on the tap and there is water. Twenty-hour hours, seven days a week: water from the tap, whenever and wherever I need it. For some, this is economic progress, even prosperity. But it whispers a truth we no longer hear, immersed as we are in the din of excess abundance and convenience: water is precious. Our kindred in harsher, drought-ridden plains know this fact all too well: every drop matters.

    That water is precious for life is appropriate for Lenten reflection. Indeed, the encounter between the Samaritan woman and Jesus at the well calls us to contemplate it. She came to draw water for drinking. And Jesus offered her water not only to satiate her thirst but for eternal life.

    In their encounter, I see how forgetful I can be, every now and again, of the more fundamental to living the good and happy life. With so much that is materially delightful around me, I can grow neglectful of that which is necessary to living life fully as a believer.

    Have you had this experience too? I suspect we confront this acutely when we struggle with our greed to acquire more only to realize how empty it leaves us.

    Lent invites us to live contrarily. It calls us to detachment, to turn away from the preoccupation with having more, so that with lesser, we are emptied for better. Less about me and my wants in prayer so that I can listen more to God. Less about me fasting obligatorily so that I will fast more voluntarily for God and others. Less about me being charitable so that charity can find its truest expression in the happiness of the other I enable.

    Lent urges us to be less so that we are more readily disposed to receiving the gift of eternal life. Jesus died to gain this for all humankind. Our Lenten gaze directs us toward this. Truly, Lent urges us to detach ourselves from the earthly that comforts to trust in the heavenly that assures. When we, finite and wordly, can do this, Jesus’ gift to us of eternal life with God makes good sense.

    Frankly, detachment is never easy. But we see in the Samaritan woman its possibility: she listens with openness. With this, we too can encounter Jesus. In him, and the eternal life he offers, all we already have pales in comparison. Then, we might find courage to join her to say, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

    Perhaps, the next time we switch on the tap for water, we will recall the preciousness of eternal life Jesus offered the woman at the well. This can be that moment to ask ourselves, do I want to drink of the living water Jesus offers me too?




    photo: imminent collision by fernando
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  2. The desert conjures up images of barrenness and desolation. Before the loneliness, nothingness and harshness that characterize it, one feels utterly vulnerable. Decried as a space of exile, even death, no one but the foolhardy would venture there; physical life struggles to thrive in the desert.

    Yet, scripture reminds us that Jesus retreated into the desert to be with God. Through prayer and fast, Jesus deprived himself of the humanly familiar, comfortable and secure so as to make space for God. This left him hungry and vulnerable to Satan’s temptations—but also, in the same way, through his weaknesses, remarkably open to God.

    Jesus’ retreat into the desert can teach us how to grow in spiritual authenticity this Lent.

    I suspect that all too often in everyday life you and I are caught in a masquerade. In putting on and taking off the myriad and discordant masks we wear for varied occasions and with diverse persons, we cannot honestly answer the question, “Who am I?” When we recognize how fake our answers are now and again, we know how much less we have become.

    Over the years, I have found Lent a reassuring time to reclaim the authenticity we lose through the pretence we put up at home, at work and in faith. With Jesus, we can retreat into a desert to recover our true selves. The Lenten practices of prayer, alms-giving and fast can lead us to the silent desert within our being. There, we can honestly re-examine our lives before the loving God who dwells within us. There God will teach us who he is and who we are. However, I am sure you find this as difficult as I do at times to say "yes" to.

    If we choose to enter into our inner deserts, we will find our lives less Christian than we dare to admit. But to confess this in God’s presence is the beginning of spiritual authenticity. We can then strip away all those masks till we arrive at nothing but nakedness.

    And doesn’t nakedness remind us of what we authentically are, God’s little ones, created in innocence and holiness to love, praise and serve him? And like every child's father, doesn't God want to nurture and strengthen us to live life well and happily? That Jesus had the strength to rebuke Satan because he discovered his authentic spiritual identity as the Son of God in the desert attests this.

    Wouldn’t it be good for us, then, this Lent to retreat into the desert of our lives to reclaim our spiritual authenticity? Are we bold enough to venture forth?




    photo: namib desert by mark b photodesign

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  3. Some of the deciduous trees on the Ateneo campus would have shed their leaves by this time. Their barren profiles will stand out starkly against the blue above. In time, however, new buds will spring forth. Sterile stalks will then bear the promise of new life. Even now, in their desolate presence, one can close one’s eyes and imagine the cool verdant shade that will shelter us safely from the summer heat to come.

    There is a quiet joy in this image of trees shedding their leaves and then becoming ablazed in green again. This is a beautiful metaphor for the Lenten season we now celebrate and the Easter it ushers us towards.

    As a child, Lent was a sombre, even frightening time. We had to fast, repent and do penance. We had to keep a sombre disposition. We were told to keep our gaze fixed on Jesus’ suffering and death.

    But Lent, as I’ve grown up to learn, is indeed a season of joy. It joyfully reminds us that in Jesus we can die to our sinfulness and in Jesus we can arise to new life. We can do this by taking stock of the state of our life and faith, our interactions with each other and our stewardship of world. And Lent invites us to do this by especially keeping our gaze fixed on Jesus’ suffering and death because they lead to his resurrection. And, in the light of his resurrection all Creation is made new.

    That we are an Easter people, blessed with the inheritance of eternal friendship with God through salvation, is truly the focus of Lent. Hence, where there was gravity in liturgy and prayer in Lent as a child, there is now for me a quiet, even expectant, joy of the Good to come because this is God’s gift of time for a change of heart.

    As we begin this period of fasting, alms-giving and prayer, can we not pray with hope, teach me, Jesus, to die to that which is dark in me so that I can arise with you in light?


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"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
Greetings!
Greetings!
Peace and welcome, dear friend.
I hope you will find in these posts something that speaks to you of the God who loves us all and who always holds us in the palm of his hand. Blessings!
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Fall in Love, Stay in Love
Fall in Love, Stay in Love

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Pedro Arrupe, sj, Superior General, 1965 - 1983

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is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
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©adrian.danker.sj, 2006-2018

The views I express in these pages are personal. They do not speak for the Society of Jesus or the Catholic Church.
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