As the sun rises today and tomorrow we are concluding part one of the 2011 Lenten Season. Yes, we are half way to Easter joy. We might use some of the sports jargon that is being heard these days as the baseball season has sounded "Play Ball." May your team make the world series!!! More seriously we can use one of the baseball questions we use in many circumstances: "How are you hitting them (pitched balls, for the uninitiated in baseball)?" How have you done with your Lenten efforts? Have you hit them out of the park? Hit a triple? as double? or a single? Hopefully you are not still standing at home plate! How has your Lenten Intention helped your awareness of what changes might be necessary for better living as a son or daughter of God, as a brother or sister of Jesus?
While the initial weeks of Lent are akin to a true or false test - I have done this well. True or False? - during the second half of Lent we place our concern or focus upon God rather than ourselves. How has God taken care of me since that wonderful day of my arrival on his earth? Have I truly begun to experience how much God has loved me since that day of my birth? Do I realize that it is these same God how has offered me the gift of reconciliation, the forgiveness of my sins?
During this second half of Lent our challenge comes from Jesus himself: "You shall love the Lord your God with all that you are. St. Paul reminds us that no matter what we think, there is no wisdom that is greater that the "first of all the commandments." "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength." Tall order!! How are you hitting them???
This is the "why" of each Lent: to build your spiritual strength, to clear your mind, to give greater depth and scope to your soul and to purify your heart. Let us pray for one another that we hit home runs this Lenten season!!!
On the Personal Side:
To my friends in Mt. Rainier and Brentwood, MD ... who grew up with me and my family in those small little cities (just outside DC): Yesterday death came to one of those cities' great givers ... of himself and all his talents to our parish, St. James, to the Volunteer Fire Department, to the Police Department, to the Catholic school ... he and Gen sent their 8 children there and to the former Nally's Funeral Home where he also work besides his regular job as a cabinet maker and as a member of the on grounds fire department at the National Institutes of Health: Mr Richard A. Barnard. 91 years of giving to others, especially the various parishes where he lived ... only three years ago he stopped working at St. Mary's Parish in Annapolis and withdrew from his weekly chores at the Knights of Columbus bingo there. And everyone from Gen to the last of his children along with so many friends loved the man. No doubt those pearly gates opened up last evening around dinner time for Dick to join his wife and others of his and her families. What a gift his presence was in our lives. I will never forget how and my Dad were among the two biggest kibitzers in town and how he cared for my mother in the several years she lived across the street from him in Annapolis and her health was declining. Like many of us, he had some faults I am sure, but unlike many of us the heavenly choral group was singing "When the Saints Come Marchin' In" last evening.
