Friday after Ash Wednesday
A friend of mine is a Carmelite nun who spends at least half the year in prayer and contemplation at a small hermitage. (The rest of the time, the community is called from their contemplation to acts of service.) Contemplatives are sometimes seen as strange because they sometimes speak of spiritual experiences - everything from prayers in which God speaks so clearly it is impossible to miss, to visions, to levitation and more. In our scientific culture, this can seem a bit much to accept at face value, and these experiences usually get explained away by psychology, biology and so on. But nonetheless, there are numerous people who are attracted to my friend and her community precisely because they have had some kind of experience of God that they can't reconcile with what the world tells them about it. The community's visitor book is filled with guests' descriptions of their own encounters.
"But what about people who don't have those kinds of experiences?" I asked her once. "Does that mean God isn't in those other peoples' lives too? Is there too much of a focus on these spiritual experiences?"
That last question is, I think part of the question being raised in today's Old Testament reading (Isaiah 58:1-9a). The prophet looks at the nation of Israel and sees all these people who want God - and they're doing they darned best to "get" God in any way they can, including trying to fast and pray as pompously as possible. They even have the audacity to tell God: "Why aren't you noticing all this good fasting I'm doing here?" In other words, they are trying to manufacture for themselves some spiritual experiences.
God, as we might expect, is not interested in arrogant people who think they know what they're doing. And so the prophet reminds these people that their fasting has been done on the backs of the poor. While they've been lying around in sackcloth and ashes, indulging themselves (carrying out their own pursuits and driving their laborers), God sees injustice and oppression being done. And so, the people are called to use their fasting to become better, more generous, humble people.
This is not to say that the spiritual experiences are unimportant. Today's gospel (Matthew 9:14-15) makes it clear that the experience of being in the Bridegroom's presence is significant.
But being in the Bridegroom's presence is not always a matter of what we ourselves perceive as an experience of God. Rather faith believes that God is present in our lives regardless of whether we see it or not. If we are being truly humble, as the Old Testament reading demands, we will not make too much of spiritual experiences.
So in answer to my questions, my Carmelite friend observed: "God is in everyone's lives. Sometimes people receive a gift of spiritual experiences. But the question I always ask them is what they're going to do with it? Does it make you love everyone more?" If it doesn't make you love more, then the spiritual experience just ends up being a selfish activity, much like the fasting going on in the first reading.
So the question for us this Lent is: does the experience of fasting, prayer and almsgiving make you love more? Will your own encounter with the Bridegroom be self-serving, or will it be the encounter that sets you on the path of discipleship and the way of the cross? Let us pray that God will give us the grace to love more.
- Jana M. Bennett