Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8 -The Tent That God Moved Into
- God chose cloth and skins and acacia wood. He chose a girl in a village nobody respected. He chooses bread and wine every week in a building in whatever town we happen to live in. He has never once required the finest available material, and He has never once waited until the conditions were right. Whatever we think is disqualifying about us, He has worked with less. ( Note- Am I trusting in Christ appropriately or keeping Him in the periphery
- Saint Paul asks the Corinthians whether they know that their body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. He is not paying them a compliment. He is telling a chaotic and rather badly behaved congregation that God has moved in anyway, and that this should change how they live. We are doing something to our bodies for the sake of our souls. It is worth asking, quietly, what sort of dwelling we are keeping. not with self-hatred. That is not what the fast is for, and God is not standing outside our tent taking notes. He has already come in.
- Blessed is He who grew small to make us great, and who has pitched His tent among us, and does not diminish.
Day 9 The Dead Stick That Flowered in the Dark
- The whole meaning of the sign lies in the One who comes forth. The Church never stops with any Marian image as though the image were complete in itself. Every title given to the Blessed Virgin opens toward her Son. The dry staff flowers because it bears fruit. The Virgin is blessed because she bears Christ. And that Fruit is not kept hidden away. He is given to the world.
- Long stretches happen when all we experience is dryness. The temptation during those times is to leave too early. We abandon prayer because it feels empty. We loosen the fast because we cannot see what it is doing. We interpret silence as absence. But the staff reminds us that there are things God does in us that we do not see while they are happening. The first bud may be forming in the dark .So let us do the only thing dry wood can do. Stay in the tent. Stay where He put us. Do not walk out because nothing seems to be happening. Stay with the prayer even when it feels dry. Stay with the fast after the enthusiasm of few days has gone. Stay with the silence even when nothing seems to be happening. Stay before God. Aaron’s staff remained before the Lord through the night. There is no need to force ourselves to feel spiritual, and there is no need to pretend that dry wood is already green. We can simply offer God what is actually there: our tiredness, our distraction, our dryness and our unfinished selves. And then trust that life belongs to Him. Morning comes. The curtain opens. And sometimes only then do we discover that God had been at work while we thought nothing was happening.
- Blessed is He who brings life from what is dry, who brings fruit from what seems barren, and who rose from the darkness of the grave.
Day 10 The Tree that was not there before
- The Mother who gave flesh to the Lamb also had to watch that flesh offered. The mystery she welcomed at Nazareth leads eventually to Calvary. The yes of the Annunciation was not a promise that nothing would hurt. It was trust in God without knowing where that trust would finally lead.
- God does not always give us back exactly what we fear losing. Genesis 22 should not become a promise that every painful situation will reverse itself at the last possible moment. The God who asks for trust is also the God who provides, and Christian faith sees the fullest proof of that provision not in the ram at Moriah, but in Christ Himself. Whatever our fasting costs us, and whatever this year may be asking us to surrender, we are not praying to a God who observes sacrifice from a safe distance. He has entered suffering. He has known the mountain. He has carried the wood. And in Christ, He has given Himself for us. The Cross is not finally the story of what humanity gave to God. It is the story of what God gave to humanity. The ram saved Isaac for that day. The Lamb saves creation.
- Blessed is He who came forth from the Virgin, who carried the wood, who was offered upon it for our sake, and who turned the place of death into the place of life.
Day 11 The Palace, and the Girl Who Said She Had No Palace
- A palace matters because the king is there . St Mary is a royal palace because the Royal Son dwells in her. She is a sanctuary because the High Priest makes His dwelling there. The image of the palace speaks of a life given over to God, a life in which Christ has found a dwelling.
- Mary said it first, and she was wrong, and she was wrong in the most glorious way anyone has ever been wrong. The Magi’s answer to her is the answer to us. He is small because He willed it. He is of low estate until He is revealed. He chose the address. Nobody talked Him into it, and He was not misinformed about what He would find there. The house is poor and the dwelling is bare, and He came down and resided anyway, and that is not a story about the house. We do not first make ourselves worthy and then invite Christ in. He comes first. His presence begins the transformation. The question is whether we recognise the King who has already come near.
- Christ still chooses unlikely places .So when we look at ourselves and think, “There is nothing regal here,” perhaps we should remember that Mary said something very similar. And she was standing in the presence of the King.
- Blessed is He who builds the house He intends to inhabit, who comes down to dwell among the lowly, and whose presence turns an ordinary dwelling into a palace.
Day 12: The Chariot That Would Have Been Envious
- Ezekiel was permitted to see the likeness of divine glory, and even that was enough to bring him to the ground. Mary was given something altogether different. She did not see a vision of the Incarnation or behold Christ through layers of heavenly imagery. She carried Christ Himself. The chariot carried the likeness of His glory. She carried the reality of His majesty. Ezekiel got the likeness. He got the appearance of the likeness of the glory. She got the reality.
- The very chariot stops, amazed that I carry its Master; the cherubim cry out with trembling, “Blessed is Your splendour in Your place”; that place is with me, my bosom is Your home! Your radiance rests on my knees, the throne of Your majesty is held in my arms. (Hymns on Mary 7) The Lord has not become less glorious. The One whom the cherubim carry with trembling is still the Lord of glory. What has changed is the way He has chosen to approach us The glory that made Ezekiel fall upon his face has allowed itself to be held.
- Grace moves toward us before we know how to move toward it .Our fasting, then, is not an attempt to persuade a distant God to come nearer. It is a way of becoming attentive to the God who has already come near. Are we, each day?
