Lent and the Third Week
Lent and the Third Week
The entire season of Lent is consistent with the third week or phase of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. Ignatian Spirituality urges us to use various prayer types, and particularly silence, to enter into the suffering and death of Christ WITH him. This Lent we are beginning Masses with an extended Penitential Rite that uses questions and other prompts to examine our conscience and help us to discern what Ignatius calls ‘spirits.’ One of those prompts challenges us to see that Christ did not only suffer for us—He suffers WITH us. Catching that spirit of shared suffering is key to the Third Week and this is central to the Lenten journey.
The discernment of spirits is an ongoing, even daily, reflective exercise to use our emotions, memory, imagination and fantasy to enter more deeply into the scripture story of Jesus.
During Lent that story tells us of his time in the desert and leads us to two of the three most dramatic events in Jesus’ life – his suffering and death. The fourth phase or week of these exercises will call us to enter into the new life of the Resurrection. That will play out for us here at Holy Family during the Easter season.
Our third phase Lenten experience of Be More asks us to suffer WITH Christ, to use the prayer forms suggested by Ignatius to connect our own suffering, setbacks, tragedies and injustices to those of Jesus Christ. The companionship WITH Christ in these dramatic events forms a different bond with him than classic events of other seasons such as love, triumph, miracle, abundance and healing. Embracing a God who suffers WITH us draws on the depth of the Incarnation. God became one of us in Jesus Christ who humanly fully experienced what we experience. In other words, we do not have a God who observes us from afar when we suffer; rather, our God suffers WITH us and understands our sufferings because He suffered with us. Because he suffered in time FOR us, He suffers across time WITH us.
Classic Christian practices such as the Stations of the Cross, fasting, and works of charity help us to journey and even suffer WITH Christ, but I believe Ignatian Spirituality offers an even deeper way to do so.
Joseph Tetlow S.J. writes about the Third Week phase of the Spiritual Exercises. He says that we must, “…concentrate on the inscape of the Lord’s experiences.” He goes on to quote the words of Ignatius himself guiding us during Lent and the third phase. Ignatius says, “I must rouse myself to sorrow, suffering and anguish by frequently calling to mind the labor, fatigue and suffering which Christ our Lord endured from the time of His birth down to the mystery of the passion upon which I am engaged at the present.” Ignatius goes on to say that we pray this grievous story in our own way and we more deeply mark or friendship with our friend Jesus Christ, and he says simply, “The Third Week is a time of silence.”
Lenten Social Justice Project
This weekend will be your first opportunity to give to two communities in the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings and three in the Diocese of Helena in Montana. Those of you who heard Becky Pugh speak to us at Mass heard of some of the most basic needs of life that the Catholic Church is providing in the Great Falls-Billings Diocese where she serves those most in need. This weekend we will hear Megan Callahan proclaim the Second Reading at all Masses. Megan coordinates Religious Education for the young people in three of these communities in the Helena Diocese – one of which is a small church with no meeting space located eleven miles from where she lives.
In 1854, Jesuit priests founded the communities that Megan serves along with a traveling priest, a religious sister, and three other lay volunteers. As we have been delving into the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius of Loyola, I feel it is important to remind you that they are primarily a society of missionaries. When most people think of Jesuits they think of educators, because, particularly in America, they have founded so many high schools, colleges, and universities.
Can you imagine the suffering that those early Jesuit missionaries experienced in bringing the basics of our faith to communities that did not even know Jesus Christ? Megan and her companions are continuing that brave missionary activity and they need our support.