Saturday After Ash Wednesday

from atop the parking garage
Louisville Speed Museum

If you remove from your midst oppression,

false accusation and malicious speech;
If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday;
Then the Lord will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land.

The “way” the Old and New Testaments describe is a most pleasant and happy way. It is a passage from darkness and gloom to light, from midnight confusion to midday clarity.

Turning to the path, sometimes with regret, we might grieve over all we have lost. When I quit drinking thirty years ago, I thought I would never again be clever, debonair or sexy. My youth was over. Fortunately, as I sobered up I saw the light; and I saw more clearly there is nothing clever, elegant or appealing about being drunk. It is nothing but stupid.

The way of penance is the way of Joy. All the saints attest to that. As we set out on the Lenten road we can expect to find more joy than we have known.

It is the joy of discovering I have more courage than I dreamed possible, more generosity than I expected, more candor than I know how to express. I have more friends than I can count, and a deeper belonging to the Earth and to the Church than I have ever known.

But it does take courage. A frightened people cannot share their resources with the needy. They cannot imagine there will be “plenty even on the parched land.” They have heard stories of Jesus feeding thousands with a few loaves of bread and couple of fish, and they claim to believe such accounts, but their certain knowledge of these historical “facts” don’t add up to faith in God.

Corrie ten Boom, in her autobiography, The Hiding Place, tells of the women in the Nazi prison sharing a small vial of yeast extract. Each night the women would take a small spoonful for the vitamins, and each night there was barely enough to go around. The bottle only dried up when a worker in the kitchen started providing a more ample supply.

There is enough to go around if we trust in God and share with one another. There is enough health care, education, clothing and energy for everyone so long as no one hoards more than they need.  

Then the Lord will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land.