CWL sisters and Father Michael: A blessed Lenten Journey as we continue on after Ash Wednesday. go into “your inner room.
What a great resource sent by Life Culture. Prayers for all the people in Carmen after the senseless murders and for the souls of the departed- including innocent children.
Sister Dorothy is such an inspiration- her evangelization and zeal for the local rural people in The Amazon and her fighting spirit will be remembered. And she was in her 70’s!
LOVE ❤️
The great traditions give name, shape, and ultimate direction to what our heart inherently knows from other sources. This is not new or unorthodox but exactly what Paul taught: “Ever since God created the world, God’s everlasting power and divinity—however invisible—have been there for the mind to see in the things of creation” (Romans 1:20). Similarly, as the Hebrew Scriptures say, “It is not beyond your strength or beyond your reach. It is not in the heavens, so that you need to ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven and bring it down to us?’ Nor is it beyond the seas, so that you need to ask, ‘Who will cross the seas and bring it back to us?’ No, the word is very near to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart” (Deuteronomy 30:11–14). We must honor the infinite mystery of our own life’s journey to recognize God in it. Or is it the other way around? It seems that God is not going to let us get close unless we bring all of ourselves—in love—including our brokenness. That’s why the Good News really is good news. Nothing is wasted. [2]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, rev. ed. (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2008, 2022), 172
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, rev. ed. (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2008, 2022), 172
Pope Francis:
By Christopher Wells
At the beginning of Lent, Jesus invites each one of us to “go into our inner room,” Pope Francis said in his homily for Mass on Ash Wednesday.
“Going into your inner room,” explained the Pope, “means returning to the heart... going from without to within, so that our whole life, including our relationship with God,” reflects the reality of our inner being.
The Pope said that Lent offers us the opportunity to “go back” to our authentic selves, removing all the masks and illusions that we too often wear.
This, he said, is why “in a spirit of prayer and humility, we receive ashes on our head"—the ashes remind us we are dust, but dust that is loved and preserved by God: “The ashes placed on our head invite us to rediscover the secret of life” and allow us to feel ourselves to be loved by God “with an eternal love.”
Called to love our brothers and sisters
The Pope went on to explain that the recognition that we are loved by God will in turn help us to see that we are called to love others in turn.
The traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, he said, “are not mere external practices,” but “paths that lead to the heart, to the core of our Christian life.”
Hearing the voice of the Lord
Pope Francis invited everyone to listen to the voice of the Lord calling us to “go into your inner room,” to “return to your heart.”
Too often, he said, “we find ourselves no longer having an inner room," especially in a world where everything has become “social.” But it is precisely in the secret chamber within each one of us “that the Lord has descended in order to heal and cleanse you.”
“Let us enter into our inner chamber,” Pope Francis pleaded. “There the Lord dwells, there our frailty is accepted, and we are loved unconditionally.”
