The Gospel for this Sunday connects deeply as we prepare to begin another season of Lent. The word Lent comes from old English word meaning “Spring.” Sometimes we hear Lent compared to a type of spring cleaning, a time to take an assessment of where we are so that we can clean out our lives. Such a cleaning is needed so that we can grow closer to God. Whenever I think of this comparison, I am immediately taken back to my childhood. My sister, Kerry, and I shared a room for many years. We loved to play and it wouldn’t take long before our room became quite a mess. We were fine with a messy room. The problem was that my mom wasn’t. She didn’t only believe in a spring-cleaning but a monthly deep cleaning. I can still remember her saying, “Girls, no playing today until that room is cleaned.” This usually got us moving and we’d head into our rooms and rearrange the mess. We’d shove things under the bed and into the closet until we had a clean looking room to show her. My mom was not to be fooled, however. She would walk in and go right to the core of our cover up. She’d open the closet door or look under the bed and our scheme would be over. She would always end by saying, “You’d think you would have learned the last time.” Back to work we’d go except this time we’d get to the bottom of the mess and truly show here a clean room at the end.
I share this story because I think it is way too easy to move around the mess in our lives and not get to the bottom of it. And, yet, through the season of, we are called to go to the core of the things we need to change. It is not enough to move around the furniture of our lives and call it good. No, we have to get under things, look at the why of what we are about and begin to make serious changes, changes that are life-changing and life-giving.
In the Gospel for this Sunday we read “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of heaven but only the one who does the will of God.” In his Rule, Saint Benedict reminds us, “Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road that leads to salvation. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.” (Prol. 48-49). Both of these readings remind us that it is not always easy to do the will of God and, yet, if we persevere our hearts will be changed and we will know the saving love of God.
During this season of Lent we are being called to look not only at the surface of our life but at its very foundation. Is our life built on rock that will stand or sand that will wash away when storms come? Isn’t it a gift to have this time of Lent, to have the opportunity to look at our foundation from the inside out and the outside in. In a sense, it is like receiving a spiritual check-up so that we can continue to build on solid rock. May it indeed be a time of deep cleaning so that we when we arrive at Easter we will be filled with the joy that Benedict speaks of so powerfully when he speaks of the season of Lent.
