Day 4, Saturday, 20 February

 

RETREAT IN LENT 2021

Day 4, Saturday, 20 February

Your light will shine

The opening days of Lent are dominated by the words of Isaiah. ‘If you do away with the yoke … your light will rise in the darkness’ (Isaiah 58:9-14). You make a choice and it has good consequences. Your emphasis is on the process not on the result. The poet T. S. Eliot says,

Take no thought for the harvest,

But only of proper sowing.

 

In other words, focus on what you are doing without thinking of what you will get out of it. Pope Francis puts it another way: ‘Time is greater than space.’ Don’t think of owning a big house, a nice car, a lot of money; do what you are doing now with great attention and love and let the results surprise you for they will surely come.

 

Note. I worked for many years in promoting development projects. Our partners, who supported us with funds, liked ‘results-based programmes’. This is understandable because one can be tempted to simply fulfil a programme – you get the money whether it is fruitful or not - without seriously asking what impact it has. But this is not inconsistent with the words of Isaiah – or Francis or Eliot. Ignoring the probable impact is not ‘proper sowing’.

 

Our joy is in doing what we are called to do – no matter what the consequences. We may identify the call as coming from our talents, our vocation or simply God. However we experience it we have a sense that it comes from deep within. From our heart’s desire. That’s the whole point. When the disciples are curious about Jesus (John 1: 37) and want to know more, ‘he turned round to face them and asked them, “What do you want?”’ They did not know what they wanted at that point and fudged their reply by asking him a question, ‘where do you live’. And he replied, ‘come and see’. 

 

Often, we are not clear what we want. I may feel dissatisfied with my life at the moment but am not clear what I can do about it. That is where the invitation comes to us, ‘Come and see’. By the end of John’s gospel the disciples knew where Jesus lives. He lives in the Father and he lives in each of us if we ‘come and see.’ To come and see is to become clear about my own situation in life: where I stand and what I can do. With that knowledge I will soon discover that ‘my light will shine in the darkness.’