Making the Discovery

You can make a cloister within your own heart...

Lent is a time of many rituals and practices. If you let it, these practices can carry you. But is it good to be carried? Didn't Jesus say to the crippled man, "Get up and walk!" (Jn 5:8). Maybe there is more to that message than we realize.

Having lived for years in a monastery, I know and love rituals. Even now, I love to light some incense just before I begin my daily meditation. I find it just gives me that atmosphere reminiscent of those days lived within the silent cloister. But I also know the dangers of rituals...that we can let them be our relationship with God, suffice for communication, carry us with the awe and majesty they present. Rituals do hold a place for us. But that place must not dominate. We must rise from great rituals and walk on our own, find our God beyond the external practices meant to lead, but not replace.

Let us go beyond rituals this Lent. Let us realize we can find the Divine if we rise and walk. There is so much for us to learn. Let us walk through the veil of mystery, and make the discovery for ourselves.