20 February 2015 - stand fast

O Bridegroom, do not tell us you will be taken from us.  We want your presence. We want the joy of being near you. Do not tell us that there will be a time where we do not have this. Do not tell us there will be a time when we will fast to mourn your absence.

Yet the truth of your passion causes us to flee. "This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: "'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'" It isn't that you shun us, LORD. It is that we shun you. We see you being stripped of your strength and we run away. We run off to our own pursuits where we think we can find solace.

Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits,
and drive all your laborers.
Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting,
striking with wicked claw.

And the only way to return to you in your suffering and your pain is to set aside our own pursuits and labors.

Would that today you might fast
so as to make your voice heard on high!

LORD, teach us not to shun you when we see you hurting. Teach us not to shun you when you are hungry, oppressed, and homeless. Teach us not to run from you when you are naked. Let us not pretend that we don't see you in pain.  We often ask you, "when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?" But you insist, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."

LORD, you chose to go to the cross. You chose to bear the weight of all of our sins. We want to be around when you are multiplying loaves, healing the sick, and casting out demons. But if we don't want you taken from us we must go with you to the cross. We must take up our own cross and follow you (cf. Mat. 16:24). We must take up our place with the beloved disciple and the mother of Jesus at the foot of your cross. She can teach us how to do this. To do so implies fasting. It is to forget ourselves by fixing our gaze, not just on your glory, but on your pain. Sacrifices that we do apart from this concern are superfluous. They do not please you. But this sacrifice, the heart that gazes on your cross, you do not spurn.

My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

Your mother teaches us and you yourself give us the power to remain at your cross. When you are taken from us you yourself empower us to return to you.  "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free" (cf. Gal. 5:1).