A 
Joyful Lent
Each year the Church’s liturgical cycle gives us a new opportunity to go out into the wilderness from the point where we are now. Perhaps it will mean literally creating more silence and solitude in our lives. Perhaps it will not be possible to do this outwardly, so that we must make an effort and look inside at what has to be faced.
Going into the wilderness
In any case, an experience of going into the wilderness means facing fear. Ascetic disciplines are not to be limited to nor despised as part of Lenten observance, but they must always lead to greater dependence on God. Watching and fasting demonstrate a mild defiance of natural rhythms in order to emphasise the prior importance of God’s dimension. These are exercises we need to weave into our quiet times of self-examination periodically, not simply being reserved for the prescribed times designated in the liturgy.
Becoming still
Learning to accept the frustration of our own non-activity helps us to become aware of God’s action in us. Above all, if we can still our restless memories and imaginations we shall discover and release the prayer that God himself is making within us, and has been making ceaselessly throughout our lives.
Listening to God’s prayer in us
Often God’s voice is overlaid by layers of our emotional reactions or occupational concerns when we do find time for contemplation of – or within – our own special wilderness.
If our scale of values is right, surely God’s prayer in us should be the steady beat, the very heartbeat continuing through all aspects of our being.
‘Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me…’ (Psalm 51) : (the late) Sister Jane SLG from her book ‘The Hidden Joy’
Bernhard Schunemann
12 March 2017
