by Sr. Doreen, SSJD
From the dawning of creation, you have loved us as your own,
Stay with us through all temptation, make us turn to you alone, make us turn to you alone.
As we move into Lent this year, I have been pondering one of Marty Haugen’s hymns called “Tree of Life”. Each week in Lent I thought I would share a meditation on one of the 5 Sunday Lenten final stanzas that can be added to his hymn.
I thought perhaps it would be helpful to put these stanzas into context by sharing Marty’s whole hymn and so I have printed it below:
Tree of Life and awesome mystery, in your death we are reborn; though you die in all of history, still you rise with every morn, still your rise with every morn.
Seed that dies to rise in glory, may we see ourselves in you; if we learn to live your story we may die to rise anew, we may die to rise anew.
We remember truth once spoken, love passed on through act and word; every person lost and broken wears the body of our Lord, wears the body of our Lord.
Gentle Jesus, mighty Spirit, come inflame our hearts anew. We may all your joy inherit if we bear the cross with you, if we bear the cross with you.
Christ, you lead and we shall follow, stumbling though our steps may be; one with you in joy and sorrow, we the river you the sea, we the river you the sea.
Light of life beyond conceiving mighty Spirit of our Lord; give new strength to our believing, give us faith to live your word, give us faith to live your word.
So today, the stanza added to the hymn for the first Sunday in Lent:
“From the dawning of creation, you have loved us as your own, stay with us through all temptation, make us turn to you alone, make us turn to you alone.”
As I begin Lent this year my own pondering of this stanza highlighted for me just what an awesome mystery God wraps around me, more than I could ever imagine or dream: to be loved as God’s own, a God who stays with me through the dark days and the light days of my life, strengthening my faith and calling, inviting me to be God’s own!
There is an ache in my heart to really be God’s own, as I enter Lent this year. I long to enter this awesome mystery that God wraps around me, to understand how to claim this, how to pray for it, how to respond to it, how to celebrate it, how to love it – more deeply and comfortably this Lent. I thought how ‘funny’ we creatures are, we long for this closeness with God and at the same time we get nervous if God gets too close! Somehow, we prefer to keep the comfortable masks that we know rather than go through into the unknown of becoming something new, something more like God. How often have I found myself in situations that are new, thinking ‘what, you mean you want me to change?’
And yet we long, we yearn to be God’s own! While this stanza from the hymn Tree of Life highlights God’s love for us that stays with us through all our experiences – both good and bad – one of the things that it acknowledges also for us is the great gift that we have to bring to God: our frailty and our splendor. To come as gift, just as I am – scripture acknowledges us as God’s anawim (Zeph 3:12-20); as the beloved, enfolded ones (Hosea 54:11-12); as the poor little blessed ones of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-11); as earthenware jars filled with a treasure (2 Corinthians 4:7); and as those who have nothing, and yet possess everything (2 Corinthians 6:10)
Most of us seem to forget to ponder the great and glorious, precious stone part of ourselves! The opportunity during Lent is for setting aside quality time to listen to God’s call to us, the invitation to be God’s own, to give thanks for both our littleness and our greatness. It is a time to turn from all temptations, to turn to God alone. We need to remember that we are not the only ones with an ache in our hearts. God’s ache for us is immense! We hear this in Hosea 11: 3-4, 8 as we ponder God’s words, “I myself taught Ephraim to walk, I held them in my arms, but they did not know that it was I who was caring for them, that I was leading them with human ties, with strings of love … I was like someone lifting an infant … Ephraim, how could I part with you? Israel, how could I give you up?”
Julian of Norwich gifts the following quote to us while we ponder being loved as God’s own, though all the seasons of our life. She said: “I saw that God is everything that is good and encouraging. God is our clothing that wraps, clasps, and encloses us so as never to leave us.”
Richard Rohr in one of his daily meditations wrote: “Entering the spiritual search for truth and for ourselves, … dealing squarely with what is—in ourselves, in others, or in the world around us—takes all elitism (its most common temptation) out of spirituality. It makes arrogant religion largely impossible and reveals any violent or self-aggrandizing religion as an oxymoron (although sadly that has not been widely recognized). In this upside-down frame, the quickest ticket to heaven, enlightenment, or salvation is unworthiness itself, or at least a willingness to face our own smallness and incapacity. Our conscious need for mercy is our only real boarding pass. The ego doesn’t like that very much, but the soul fully understands.”
Life is full of God, and all of life is the opportunity to make this stanza ours, to plant it deep in our hearts and souls: “From the dawning of creation, you have loved us as your own, stay with us through all temptation, make us turn to you alone, make us turn to you alone.”
In my Lenten journey this year Lectio Divina becomes a cherished way of reading God in everything. A Benedictine Abbott Marmion coined the phrase “reading under the eye of God” – slow, reflective reading with a longing to be touched, healed, and transformed or changed. Abbott Marmion gave us a beautiful definition of what Lectio Divina is when he wrote the following: “Read under the eye of God until your heart is touched, then give yourself up to love.” It is a way of reading with the heart, of letting your heart be touch in meditation as you struggle with what you have read and with God pondering how it mirrors your own life, until it becomes a way of moving into just giving yourself up to love in contemplation, rather like falling into the hands of God and resting there – just looking at God and letting God look at you. Taking up the daily practice of Lectio Divina – using scripture reading, news reading, nature reading, life’s experiences reading – is a good practice for enriching our Lenten journey.
Years ago, Sister Theresa Hucul of the Sisters of Charity wrote a beautiful song, now part of an album called Harvesting, and I would like to end with this song:
And God sang,
“You are a love song, beauty set to music
You are a love song; I have chosen you.”
For you and for me during Lent, I wonder what it would be like if we believed that we were a love song of God? How would it change our presence with others?
