Pastor's Letter -- February 28, 2021

I would like to give you two texts for some short prayer and reflection this week.

First, I heard something in a talk recently that seemed to be a message for not just me. It is definitely a theme God has been giving me in the past months, but this is something for all of us Christians.

It compared the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the burning bush that Moses saw on Mount Sinai. This fire that was not consuming the bush
was the instrument that drew Moses in, that allowed him to encounter God in a profound way and to leave changed, with a mission. It was the key to understanding the Father’s love for the people of His promise, for Abraham’s descendants. We have the same
“key” in the Heart of Jesus, who tells us: “Whoever has seen me has
seen the Father.”

It is hard to put into words how deeply the Lord desires you to be
transformed by His love for you. The Lord does not have a generic
love, appreciating the human race, and creation as a whole, from a
distance. The Lord’s love is particular, passionate, and powerful, like
that little flame that burns beside the tabernacle.

The Lord’s heart is on fire for you. He wants you to draw close to
Him. He wants you to rest next to His Sacred Heart, to hear it beat,
just like St. John the apostle did at the Last Supper.

God really enjoys Lent. He enjoys it not because He wants to watch
you suffer; not because He needs you to obey Him or show how
important He is; no, He loves it because He gets to see you drawing
closer to Him, even perhaps resting close to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus and feeling the intense burning of that love for you. In this
season the Lord sees so many trying together (each in their own
way) to get closer to Him, and that is exactly why God loves Lent.

Isaiah 55:3 Do but listen, here you shall find content; here are
choice foods that shall ravish your hearts. To my summons give
heed and hearing; so your spirits shall revive; a fresh covenant
awaits you, this time eternal; gracious promise of mine to David
shall be ratified now.

For a separate period of meditation and prayer, below is a poem,
echoing on the theme from the Easter Vigil’s Exultet: “O happy fault
[of Adam], that earned so great, so glorious a redeemer.”

One Foot in Eden
by Edwin Muir

One foot in Eden still, I stand
And look across the other land.
The world's great day is growing late,
Yet strange these fields that we have planted
So long with crops of love and hate.
Time's handiworks by time are haunted,
And nothing now can separate
The corn and tares compactly grown.
The armorial weed in stillness bound
About the stalk; these are our own.
Evil and good stand thick around
In the fields of charity and sin
Where we shall lead our harvest in.

Yet still from Eden springs the root
As clean as on the starting day.
Time takes the foliage and the fruit
And burns the archetypal leaf
To shapes of terror and of grief
Scattered along the winter way.
But famished field and blackened tree
Bear flowers in Eden never known.
Blossoms of grief and charity
Bloom in these darkened fields alone.
What had Eden ever to say
Of hope and faith and pity and love
Until was buried all its day
And memory found its treasure trove?
Strange blessings never in Paradise
Fall from these beclouded skies.