The morning sky is grey and my favorite window for prayer is rain-streaked. Rain is welcome. We’ve experienced drought, and there are wild fires nearby. And yet, there’s often something sad, nostalgic, about a rainy day.
Years ago, when I was a young high school teacher, I made a retreat at a center on the Kansas prairie. It was newly founded by Father Ed Hayes, later a well-known spiritual guide and author. The center, in its primitive stages, was low on guest rooms. I, and my fellow teacher, a young Ursuline sister, brought sleeping bags and a tent. A flashlight guided us to our campsite each night through the darkness, and I will never forget the night something crawled and dug beneath our tent as we tried to sleep.
Was this before or after the huge bonfire, where when the wood was lit, large rattlesnakes slithered out of the pile? The memory horrifies me. Would I ever consider sleeping in that tent now? Ah, the courage — and recklessness — of youth.
In a conference with Father Hayes, I was my usual silent self, weeping but unable to share my inner feelings. It was raining that day as well, and the priest gazed out his window and said, “the sky is crying, just as you are.”
Is the sky crying now, I wonder, as I gaze out the window of my much-older life? Isaiah tells us the rain replenishes the earth, just as God’s word is sent and does not return to God empty (Is 55:10-13).
But can tears replenish us as well? Tears can be a sign of sorrow, grief, frustration. Yet, St. Ignatius of Loyola focused on tears that mark deep consolation. We need to be alive to the times when prayer leads us to tears.
Lent moves on. How to measure this pilgrimage? For me, certain readings have been a blessing. As the season began, I started what I thought would be a plodding venture through a nearly 600-page biography of St. Ignatius. Instead, it turned out to be the journey I desired for Lent: slow, revealing, fascinating.
“Ignatius of Loyola, The Pilgrim Saint,” by Father Jose Ignacio Tellechea Idigoras, is intimate, historical and relies on first person testimonies. And who knew there were so many? The author, like Ignatius, is from the Basque country of Spain, and he brings the region alive.
We meet Inigo, this vain, handsome young aristocrat, determined to fight for glory in Pamplona, gradually moving from the rowdiness and woman-chasing of his youth to the wounded pilgrim seeking God. We see the lessons he learns, sometimes slowly and awkwardly. At an early point, Ignatius lets the donkey decide, by choosing which turn to take, whether he should kill a man for disrespecting the Blessed Virgin, or let him live.
But it’s growth we see, spiritual growth that enables Ignatius to author the Spiritual Exercises, his method of making decisions that rely, not on the chance decision of donkeys, but solely on the voice of God speaking in our lives.
Lenten liturgies have abounded with great readings. The prodigal son made his appearance in our Lenten readings, his hunger so great that he had considered eating the husks for the pigs he had been hired to feed. Hitting rock bottom, he returned, humiliated, to the father who welcomed him with mercy.
We’ve marveled one Sunday with Moses at a burning bush that is flaming but not consumed. You’re on sacred ground, God tells Moses.
As the rain falls softly, we know the lesson of Lent: that as we listen to God’s voice in our lives, we also stand on sacred ground.
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